The UK produces 1 million tonnes per year of kaolin, a raw material of ceramics, which a cross-sector interest group hopes to protect with EU-derived anti-dumping duties following the UK’s exit from the European Union.

The UK ceramics industry is lobbying the UK government to ensure that anti-dumping duties for China based on existing EU rules stay in place post-Brexit to protect the supply chain and preserve jobs.

Tableware and tiles had been most affected among the ceramics industry by cheap Chinese imports until the EU applied a tariff of 13.1-36.1% on those products, which came into force on May 14, 2013.

Kaolin is one of the raw materials in the ceramics production stream, and the UK produces 1 million tpy of the mineral, according to the United States Geological Survey.

Industrial Minerals priced kaolin at $231-241 per tonne for tableware(-45 micron, FCL’s bagged>90 whiteness, fob HaiPhong, Vietnam) on February 13, flat from the previous month.

With the UK set to leave the EU, such EU-enforced protections will cease to apply in the UK on March 29, 2019,  unless a transitional period is agreed with the remaining 27-member bloc.

«At present UK ceramic manufacturers and their supply chain benefit from two EU anti-dumping measures covering imports of tiles and tableware from China. The anti-dumping duties provide our members with a level playing field with state-supported Chinese competitors,» the British Ceramics Confederation (BCC), a trade interest group, which is lobbying on behalf of all sectors of the UK ceramics industry, told Industrial Minerals.

«The bills currently before Parliament need to [be amended to] enable similar UK measures, but at the moment they fall short. This isn’t about protectionism, it’s about restoring a competitive environment when some countries break the rules,» the BCC added.

The Taxation (Cross-Border Trade) Bill, first brought before parliament on November 20, 2017, proposes an economic interest test and public interest test should be used to calculate the damage to sales and jobs and will be imposed by a newly-created Trade Remedies Authority (TRA).

The TRA would be in charge of implementing any trade remedies or anti-dumping duties, while the two tests are deemed to be too vaguely outlined in the bill and therefore insufficient to protect UK producers from dumped products.

The European Ceramic Industry Association and European Federation for Ceramic Table- and Ornamentalware claim Chinese imports have caused the loss of 10,000 jobs among EU producers between 2008-2013 and reduced output, allowing Chinese control of the industry.

The UK ceramics industry currently creates an annual $2 billion turnover, and $500 million of exports.

Should China flood the UK market with cheaply-made ceramics products, Chinese products could then hold a monopoly on the market.

Those given market economy status (MES) by the World Trade Organisation are exempt from anti-dumping duties, whereas non-MES countries can have their products subject to tariffs.

China has not yet been given MES, but is lobbying to achieve this.

Countries such China and Vietnam, where the state exerts a lot of influence in the domestic economy by providing subsidies, for instance, create artificially-low prices on products in countries where they are exported.

El pasado día 20 de Febrero tuvo lugar en la sede de Anfre en Madrid la Junta Directiva, la Asamblea General Ordinaria y las reuniones de nuestros distintos comités.

Al tratarse de la primera reunión del año nos hemos centrado tanto en la aprobación de los acuerdos tomados durante el 2017 como en la organización y aprobación de los eventos que queremos llevar a cabo durante el 2018.

Cabe destacar en este sentido la celebración de nuestro IX Congreso Nacional de Materiales, Maquinaria y Montaje de Refractarios que tendrá lugar como vienen siendo habitual en Oviedo los días 12 y 13  de Junio.

Debido al gran éxito que se ha obtenido en el Curso de Ingeniería de Refractarios se va a realizar la II edición del mismo, este año en Sevilla durante el mes de Noviembre.

Se ha hablado largo y tendido de los temas que interesan a los asociados tanto a nivel nacional como europeo.

Tenemos que agradecer la asistencia a dichas reuniones de Matilde Fernández García y Ricardo Álvarez Fernández de la Fundación ITMA, nos han acercado un poco más con sus presentación a dicha institución.

Como es ya habitual después de un día duro de reuniones podemos relajarnos en la comida que ofrece Anfre a todos los asistentes.

Queríamos agradecer una vez más a todos los asociados su implicación en la Asociación, sin todos vosotros Anfre no sería posible. Gracias por seguir sumando.

Os esperamos en Oviedo.

The company aims to have its fused magnesia line ‘up and running’ in Norway before year-end.

Austrian refractory maker RHI is aiming to restart fused magnesia (FM) production at its partially-mothballed facility in Norway in December, the company told IM.

After an initial announcement at the beginning of October, RHI said it is confident the FM production line at the Porsgrunn facility can be «up and running» in a short period of time.

«We are working to start up in December with a limited number of lines first. We will constantly evaluate the needs in terms of production volume to guarantee the supply to our customers,» RHI told IM.

The FM operation at the facility was mothballed in August 2016, on the back of weak market conditions that made the line uneconomical to run.

CCM production at the site meanwhile continued – which is the main reason behind the swift restart schedule RHI is pursuing, as workers have remained at the facility and operations have ticked over in the other manufacturing lines at the site.

Whether RHI’s Norwegian plant would start producing FM again has been a main point of discussion among industry players over the past few months, as the shortage of the material intensified in major consuming markets.

Prices of the material from both Chinese and European suppliers have reached new highs in October.
European FM increased further to $1,400-1,600/tonne, while all Chinese FM grades also appreciate dafter the Golden Week national holiday.

The paper investigates the wear damage origins and causes of refractory products in cremation furnaces, identifies various material characteristics for service time improvements and suggests new concepts for the thermal optimisation of lining materials. There are essentially two types of furnaces available in crematoria: multi-deck furnaces and flat-bed furnaces.

The Henan government has ramped up efforts to combat pollution by implementing yet more shutdowns of brown fused alumina production later this year. This is set to cause more global supply disruptions since output was already intermittent in recent months.

The government of Henan province in China will enforce large-scale brown fused alumina production stoppages from November 2017 – March 2018 in a bid to cut down pollution levels in the region, according to official documentation.

China is one of the biggest fused alumina producers in the world and Henan is a key fused alumina producing region.

Further output cuts will severely impact exports to the refractories and abrasive sectors globally, since production was already intermittent due to the past months of anti-pollution checks, market participants told IM.

According to the provincial capital Zhengzhou government, the province must meet the target of the environmental plan, it announced on 28 September.

Under the plan, the average concentration of particulate matter (PM2.5) between October 2017 and March 2018 must fall by 20% year-on-year, and the number of severe pollution days must also reduce by 15%.

By end of October, all steel and cement producers must complete their paperwork for emission licenses, while copper, zinc, lead smelters, aluminium, pharmaceutical and pesticide producers must obtain their licences by December 2017.

Companies releasing pollutants without licenses will be prosecuted, according to Zhengzhou government.
In a separate notice seen by IM, a list of 51 brown fused alumina producers across Zhengzhou, Jiaozuo, Luoyang,
Sanmenxia, Jiyuan, Gongyi and Lankao have been compelled by the government authority to shut down for a set period of time, between 15 November and 15 March 2018.

While it is not a blanket ban to all producers to shut down production in the next four months, 42 on the list are allowed to produce for one month in January 2018, while five have ceased operation indefinitely.

It is unclear when the environmental restrictions will end, but many market participants within and outside China believe that many small fused alumina producers will not survive this wave of checks. As a result, the total output in China could potentially drop in 2017.