82 million tons of bauxite reserves were proved in China  2019-03-27

Mar. 27, 2019 – On February, 14th, the Department of Natural Resources of Shanxi Province announced that they have confirmed 82 million tons of bauxite reserve after hard work over the past years. Actually, the local government has checked 60 previous projects and distributed 357 million yuan as a way to develop 83 programs to exploit new reserves for various minerals. Consequently, a string of important resources were exploited, including 2,437 million tons of coal and 82 million tons of bauxite.

Henan found 240 million tons of super large bauxite 2019-03-15

Mar. 15, 2019 – This super-large bauxite mine is located on the southeast side of the Luoyang Basin and the north wing of the Songshan anticline. The metallogenic belt belongs to the Yanshi-Gongxian-Xingyang bauxite devision of Songshan-Jishan bauxite metallogenic area. The ore body is mainly bauxite, symbiotic refractory clay, allite, pyrite, siderite, and associated gallium, which can also be used for comprehensive utilization as super-large sedimentary deposits.

It is understood that a total of 273 holes have been drilled in the district, and the drilling workload exceeds 100,000 meters. There are 16 bauxite ore bodies in the exploration area. The estimated bauxite resources were 240 million tons, with an average thickness of 3.21 meters, and the scale of the deposit reached the scale of super-large deposits.

The census also discovered other mineral resources. It is estimated that the refractory clay mineral resources are 54 million tons with 21 symbiotic refractory clay ore bodies; the allite resources are 170 million tons with 39 allite ore bodies; the pyrite resources are 181 million tons with 8 pyrite ore bodies. According to industry experts, the scale of refractory clay, pyrite and allite resources have reached the scale of large deposits and have a high comprehensive utilization value.

Industry experts said that the project results provided resource security for the development of aluminum industry in Henan Province and provided solid resources for regional economic and social development.

The removal of US sanctions on producer Rusal has added strength to Alcoa’s forecast of a surplus in alumina in 2019.

United States-based Alcoa, the world’s eighth-largest aluminium producer, has forecast that there will be a surplus of alumina in 2019 while it increases aluminium metal shipments.

There was a 600,000-tonne deficit of alumina at the end of 2018, the company said, rounding off a year of record market tightness.

Fastmarkets’ alumina index rocketed upward to $707.75 per tonne on April 24, 2018, the highest since the index was first assessed in 2010, because a series of stoppages at major refineries choked supply.

But Alcoa is forecasting that the market will swing to a surplus of 200,000-1 millions this year, even if the current shortfall in supply continues. The shortfall results from the closure of Norsk Hydro’s Alunorte facility in Brazil.

«The projected alumina surplus is being driven by China, where refining expansions are expected to outpace demand growth from smelting,» Alcoa said.

Fastmarkets’ alumina index will be used in a basket of prices to settle contracts on the London Metal Exchange, the exchange announced in January.

2018 supply squeeze

In March 2018, Hydro’s Alunorte refinery was forced to reduce its output by 50% in line with state environmental concerns.

Given its capacity for 7 million tonnes per year, a potential 3.5 million tonnes of alumina was subsequently kept from the market.

In April, US sanctions against Russian aluminium producer UC Rusal, which runs an alumina refinery in Aghinish, Ireland, further restricted supply.

Market to swing to surplus

But the factors that led to a deficit last year look set to improve. Norsk Hydro announced on January 16 that some state-level embargoes had already been removed.

The return of Alunorte to full production under the new Brazilian government is expected to reintroduce much-needed material to the market.

«With the production embargo removed at a state level, Alunorte is gearing up to return to full production. Yet, the embargo at a federal level remains in place. The current alumina price of less than $400 per tonne reflects this, and we see a potential restart from the second quarter onward, with a return of 3 million tpy putting pressure on marginal Chinese producers,» BMO Capital Markets analyst Kash Kamal said.

US sanctions against UC Rusal were removed on January 27, further easing any residual tightness from 2018.

Further, a strike at Alcoa’s Brazilian refinery in September 2018, which exacerbated last year’s supply
squeeze, has ended. Indeed, Alcoa’s shipments of alumina are set to increase by 5.8-6.6% year-onyear
in 2019 to a total of 13.6-13.7 million tonnes.

Refined metal shipment increase

The decommissioning of the Avilés and La Coruña plants was announced in October 2018 and will see
the end of operations at the two smelters, which have combined capacity for 124,000 tpy.

The move has been described as an operational improvement, and higher year-on-year production is
expected. Casthouses will remain open in both locations, however, with La Coruña also retaining its
pasting operations.

Alcoa expects an annual improvement to net income of $70-80 million on the strength of the
closures and subsequent restructuring.

El pasado martes 4 de junio tuvieron lugar en la sede de Anfre en Madrid las reuniones de la Junta Directiva y de los distintos comités, Comité de Montadores y Comité Técnico.

En dichas reuniones se trataron temas de interés para Anfre y para el sector del refractario en general.

Se ha comentado el gran éxito obtenido en la II Edición del Curso de Ingeniería de Refractarios, curso que tuvo lugar el pasado marzo en Sevilla. Desde aquí queremos volver a felicitar a todas las personas involucradas en la realización del mismo y de igual manera a todas aquellas empresas de Anfre que siguen confiando en nosotros.

Hemos recordado a todos los asistentes que la próxima reunión la haremos coincidir un la jornada técnica que está preparando la sección de refractarios de la Sociedad Española de Cerámica y Vidrio “ Conocimiento, Economía circular y Reciclado den el sector de los materiales refractarios” , jornada que tendrá lugar el 23 de octubre en el Instituto de Cerámica y Vidrio.

Dº Diego de la Fuente Díez, de Calderys Ibérica,  ha ratificado su cargo como Presidente desde el 1 de junio del 2019 hasta el 31 de mayo del 2020.

Una vez finalizadas las reuniones hemos podido relajarnos durante la comida ofrecida por ANFRE.

Desde ANFRE os deseamos un Feliz Verano!!!

Nos vemos en la próxima reunión de octubre.

Mar. 05, 2019 – Local government in Sanmenxia, Zhengzhou, Henan Province, one of the main industrial districts for white fused alumina, brown fused alumina and other corundum minerals, announced a new round of production capacity restriction actions starting from 1st, March, lasting for 60 days.

During this period, peak hour production restriction would be the main action that is expected to be implemented uninterruptedly, and electric power control will be taken as the measure so as to make sure production restriction conducted. Besides, overall production stoppage will be completely implemented during days of worst air pollution.

By the end of February, a total of 14 rounds of environmental governance and inspection have been implemented by local governments in Sanmenxia since 2017, with about half of those actions carried out in the last 8 months of this period, during which production facilities change from stoppage to limited production and then to stoppage again. The same situation happens to other regions in Henan province and also parts of Shanxi province, which has seriously affected supply for many refractory minerals.

China government has shown its determination to improve the environment by actions in the past 2 years, followed by the firm attitudes from local authorities in different cities of the country, which is impossible to change until the environment in China would have been improved. Refwin quoted unnamed sources, local authorities in Zhengzhou are doing works to release some high quality capacity by clarifying differentiated environmental policies to local smelting facilities, calcination and process plants i.e. “one plant, one policy”, by which it regulates what condition and what extent can a plant conduct production, which means some licensed plants are able to release more capacity even under severe air polluted conditions. This sounds to be a good news at current stage of supply risk.

In the winter of 2018-2019, it’s found that the overall market price for WFA, BFA, calcined bauxite shows no significant changes (calcined bauxite for some grades increased for dozens of yuan) in China market, although those minerals are all in extreme shortage of supply. The reason mainly lies in the depression of demands both from domestic and global market.

It seems that the market has entered a relatively stable status in China for refractory mineral under environmental protection implementation, in which various minerals are find their price position in the new market situation, at which it’s hard for them to get sharply up or down in price.

In 2019, the situation of bauxite ore ban plays a very key role in 2019 for alumina based refractory minerals, just like the dynamite ban plays the same very important role to magnesia-based refractory minerals. We have seen the price down of DBM and FM, after dynamite was available to parts of mine facilities in this year. The situation may turns to be clearer after NPC and CPPCC.

Conducting negotiations with international investors for the sale of Kümaş Manyezit Sanayi AŞ, Yıldız Holding made a statement to London Stock Exchange (LSE) announcing the signing of an exclusivity agreement with the Australian company RHI Magnesita.

The statement made by RHI Magnesita to LSE was as follows:”As announced previously, the Company continues to consider a potential transaction involving Kumas Manyezit Sanayi AS and the Company has entered into an exclusivity agreement with the sellers, Yıldız Holding A.Ş. and Gözde Girişim Sermayesi Yatırım Ortaklığı A.Ş. As a market leader in its segment, RHI Magnesita regularly seeks to evaluate opportunities that may arise to participate in the ongoing consolidation of the refractory industry, however there can be no certainty that any transaction will occur.”