12th Rare Earth Summit
May 27-28, 2021
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
11th Aluminum Raw Materials Summit
May 20-21, 2021
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
9th Magnesium Summit
April 15-16, 2021
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
13th World InBiGeGa Forum
March 25-26, 2021
Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
7th World Antimony Forum
June 13-14, 2019
Changsha, Hunan, China
7th Refractory & Abrasive Materials Summit 2019
May 23-24, 2019
Qingdao, Shandong, China
10th Aluminum Raw Materials Summit
May 16-17, 2019
Zhengzhou, Henan, China
11th Rare Earth Summit
May 9-10, 2019
Qingdao, Shandong, China
8th Magnesium Summit
April 11-12, 2019
Zhuhai, Guangdong, China
12th World InBiGeGa Forum
March 14-15, 2019
Zhuhai, Guangdong, China
6th World Manganese & Selenium Forum
May 21-22, 2018
Hainan Sanya, China
Interview with Mr. Liu Haijian, CEO of CMP Group
China Mineral Processing Ltd (CMP) is a European company formed by a group of independent investors to develop the processing of Chinese minerals in China for export into the world market. In 1993, CMP built its first processing plant –C M P Tianjin Co. Ltd(CMP Tianjin) near the port of Xingang, Tianjin, China and pioneered the export of pre-sized minerals from China for world refractory industry. In 1998 CMP established a pre-mixing line and was the first to provide OEM production of refractory pre-mixes for European refractory manufacturers. In 2000, CMP initiated the production and export of synthetic refractory mullite from China. In 2001 CMP constructed a state-of-the-art castable plant and started to provide OEM production of finished products for a number of internationally renowned refractory manufacturers. In January 2005, CMP Tianjin’s new mineral processing plant came into full operation. Since inception, CMP has grown rapidly to become a dominant force in the supply of processed minerals and pre-mixes to the World market.
Liu Haijian: Influences of policy adjustment on Chinese bauxite industry
----Interview with Mr. Liu Haijian, CEO of CMP Group
Asian Metal: How do you think of the current worldwide macro-economy?
Liu: Influenced by the worldwide economy stimulus packages, the real economy seems recovering; however, some of the hidden problems appeared along with the rapid economy development in the first quarter, especially for the exchange rate problem, which is crucial for the international trades.
Chinese currency faces great pressure to appreciate, and European currency devaluated significantly caused by the dept crisis in some European countries. All of the above made bad surroundings for the enterprises that deeply depend on European Federation countries. Lafarge and CMP are the two representative biggest sufferers.
The devaluation of European currency is beneficial for some exporters (represented by Germany), while it is very bad for some other countries who need pay national debt, such as Portugal, Spain and Greece.
Asian Metal: Chinese government unveiled a series of policy in succession, such as closing down backward capacity, cancelling preferential power prices in high energy-consuming industries, controlling mining quantity of refractory clay, adjusting resources taxes, so I wonder what are the advantages and disadvantages for the bauxite industry?
Liu: Generally speaking, these policies are beneficial to bauxite industry. It is conducive to key enterprises to undergo company reconstructing, to enhance the bauxite industry access threshold, to restrict small-sized enterprises (scattered on distributing and small on scale) entering and avoid destructive mining of resources, which will help industry upgrades, reduce circumstance pollutions, protect resources and improve the malicious competition within smelters. The market is able to change from pure price competition to quality and service competition.
Enterprises reconstructing will help increase local financial income, avoid tax evasion of small-size enterprises, and then improve the local economy developments.
Asian metal: Is the enterprises reconstructing helpful to promote market competitiveness?
Liu: After enterprises reconstructing, the large-sized companies will have higher operating costs in line with increase of fixed input, and then products prices will go up accordingly, which is able to weaken the competitiveness; however, reconstructing helps the company to take more important role as for the products quality stability and improvements.
Foreign counterparts do very well on this point. For example, Australian enterprises processe raw bauxite into alumina in order to get high added value, of course, some Chinese enterprises also try to follow up. However, fnished products quality is not so satisfied, and it may need a long time for the Chinese enterprises to achieve or exceed the same level as advanced world enterprises. Only China and Guyana could provide high quality bauxite for the moment.
Asian metal: How about the current supply situation?
Liu: Supply continues to keep tight in China, for many smelters have been out of production since the very beginning of the economy crisis in 2008. Government restricts bauxite mining in order to protect the non-renewable resources, and the annual output decreased from 5million tons in the previous years to 2-3million tons in recent two years. Only a small quantity of 700,000-1,000,000t is for exports, accounting for 25% in total.
CMP is running at 80% of its full capacity of 50,000-60,000tpy for calcined bauxite, and we will purchase large quantities of bauxite from other smelters to meet demand both at home and abroad. However, other companies are not running at very well this year.
By the end of April, China has exported more than 230,000t of bauxite, and most of our 40,000t export quotas have been used up by the end of April. Export market moves stable in May and June, and there are not many export licenses available in the spot market for the time being. Our bauxite is with steady quality and quantity, though prices are a little higher. We aim to provide best products and service for our customers, and try to realize win-win.
Asian metal: And what about the demand from downstream consumers?
Liu: Bauxite is mainly used in high-temperature industry, such as steel industry, cement industry, construction materials industry, chemical industry, metallurgy industry to name a few. The biggest application in steel industry accounts for 20-30% of the total usage, but Chinese government pressed down housing prices and real estate industry keeps weak. Therefore, steel prices continue to decline and some small-sized steel mills stop production successively, which will cause bauxite demand slide sharply in the second half of this year.
The Chinese steel industry enters phase of adjustments again. For quite a long time, China used to export low-end products, but importing high quality products. Technology monopoly in foreign countries may explain the reason partly, and the most important reason is attributed to the fact that Chinese steel market always lies in a disorder situation, which will take 3-5 years for the Chinese market to enter into a favorable momentum of development.
International steel market moves relatively stable with complete competition mechanism, which is able to rise to the challenges, and demand for raw materials will keep rising in the second half of this year.
Asian metal: Most consumers lamented that bauxite quality is decreasing year by year, and the reserves will also decline in the coming year, therefore, how will bauxite market develop?
Liu: Bauxite supply will keep tight in the coming years, and the world economy is bound to recover and go forward. We will adjust our production capacity and products category to meet the future demand.
As for the decreasing bauxite quality, we are building homogenized bauxite kilns with designed production capacity of 60,000tpy in order to make full use of the low-grade bauxite and to process high-quality products. The project was planed to be finished last year, but delayed to this November due to the economy cirsis.
Bauxite could be used in many others fields, which needs us to explore.
Liu: Influenced by the worldwide economy stimulus packages, the real economy seems recovering; however, some of the hidden problems appeared along with the rapid economy development in the first quarter, especially for the exchange rate problem, which is crucial for the international trades.
Chinese currency faces great pressure to appreciate, and European currency devaluated significantly caused by the dept crisis in some European countries. All of the above made bad surroundings for the enterprises that deeply depend on European Federation countries. Lafarge and CMP are the two representative biggest sufferers.
The devaluation of European currency is beneficial for some exporters (represented by Germany), while it is very bad for some other countries who need pay national debt, such as Portugal, Spain and Greece.
Asian Metal: Chinese government unveiled a series of policy in succession, such as closing down backward capacity, cancelling preferential power prices in high energy-consuming industries, controlling mining quantity of refractory clay, adjusting resources taxes, so I wonder what are the advantages and disadvantages for the bauxite industry?
Liu: Generally speaking, these policies are beneficial to bauxite industry. It is conducive to key enterprises to undergo company reconstructing, to enhance the bauxite industry access threshold, to restrict small-sized enterprises (scattered on distributing and small on scale) entering and avoid destructive mining of resources, which will help industry upgrades, reduce circumstance pollutions, protect resources and improve the malicious competition within smelters. The market is able to change from pure price competition to quality and service competition.
Enterprises reconstructing will help increase local financial income, avoid tax evasion of small-size enterprises, and then improve the local economy developments.
Asian metal: Is the enterprises reconstructing helpful to promote market competitiveness?
Liu: After enterprises reconstructing, the large-sized companies will have higher operating costs in line with increase of fixed input, and then products prices will go up accordingly, which is able to weaken the competitiveness; however, reconstructing helps the company to take more important role as for the products quality stability and improvements.
Foreign counterparts do very well on this point. For example, Australian enterprises processe raw bauxite into alumina in order to get high added value, of course, some Chinese enterprises also try to follow up. However, fnished products quality is not so satisfied, and it may need a long time for the Chinese enterprises to achieve or exceed the same level as advanced world enterprises. Only China and Guyana could provide high quality bauxite for the moment.
Asian metal: How about the current supply situation?
Liu: Supply continues to keep tight in China, for many smelters have been out of production since the very beginning of the economy crisis in 2008. Government restricts bauxite mining in order to protect the non-renewable resources, and the annual output decreased from 5million tons in the previous years to 2-3million tons in recent two years. Only a small quantity of 700,000-1,000,000t is for exports, accounting for 25% in total.
CMP is running at 80% of its full capacity of 50,000-60,000tpy for calcined bauxite, and we will purchase large quantities of bauxite from other smelters to meet demand both at home and abroad. However, other companies are not running at very well this year.
By the end of April, China has exported more than 230,000t of bauxite, and most of our 40,000t export quotas have been used up by the end of April. Export market moves stable in May and June, and there are not many export licenses available in the spot market for the time being. Our bauxite is with steady quality and quantity, though prices are a little higher. We aim to provide best products and service for our customers, and try to realize win-win.
Asian metal: And what about the demand from downstream consumers?
Liu: Bauxite is mainly used in high-temperature industry, such as steel industry, cement industry, construction materials industry, chemical industry, metallurgy industry to name a few. The biggest application in steel industry accounts for 20-30% of the total usage, but Chinese government pressed down housing prices and real estate industry keeps weak. Therefore, steel prices continue to decline and some small-sized steel mills stop production successively, which will cause bauxite demand slide sharply in the second half of this year.
The Chinese steel industry enters phase of adjustments again. For quite a long time, China used to export low-end products, but importing high quality products. Technology monopoly in foreign countries may explain the reason partly, and the most important reason is attributed to the fact that Chinese steel market always lies in a disorder situation, which will take 3-5 years for the Chinese market to enter into a favorable momentum of development.
International steel market moves relatively stable with complete competition mechanism, which is able to rise to the challenges, and demand for raw materials will keep rising in the second half of this year.
Asian metal: Most consumers lamented that bauxite quality is decreasing year by year, and the reserves will also decline in the coming year, therefore, how will bauxite market develop?
Liu: Bauxite supply will keep tight in the coming years, and the world economy is bound to recover and go forward. We will adjust our production capacity and products category to meet the future demand.
As for the decreasing bauxite quality, we are building homogenized bauxite kilns with designed production capacity of 60,000tpy in order to make full use of the low-grade bauxite and to process high-quality products. The project was planed to be finished last year, but delayed to this November due to the economy cirsis.
Bauxite could be used in many others fields, which needs us to explore.