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 Wang Hongyin, general manager of Dalian United Mining Co., Ltd.

Dalian United Mining Co., Ltd., located in Dalian City, the Northeast Logistic Center of China, mainly deals with chrome ore deep processing and trading. Our company has warehouses and workshops in Shanghai, Tianjin, Lianyungang and Dalian, and branch companies in South Africa and Dubai. All the geographic advantages facilitate the transportation and communication with all the domestic customers and also for export largely.
Our main businesses are import and export. We import foundry, chemical, metallurgical and refractory chrome ore from South Africa, high carbon ferrochrome from South Africa and Kazakhstan. Meantime, we export the U wire, fencing mesh, barbeque mesh, razor wire, annealed wire, galvanized wire and so on to Europe.
Wang Hongyin: Analysis of foundry chrome ore market
----Interview with Wang Hongyin, general manager of Dalian United Mining Co., Ltd.
Asian Metal: Thanks for accepting the interview with Asian Metal, Mr. Wang. Could you please first give a brief introduction to the foundry chrome ore market in 2010?
Wang: Sure. Generally speaking, the market of foundry chrome ore was not bad in the whole year of 2010 and prices were in a continuous uptrend. Influenced by the economic crisis in the first half year, the demand was not quite good. Then with the whole economy recovering, the market became better. Demand and prices began to see obvious increase since the third quarter. Prices in the second half year increased by about 20% compared with those of the first half year.
Asian Metal: What do you think is the current demand and supply in the domestic foundry chrome ore market?
Wang: The supply is not tight right now as raw materials can enter the Chinese market. There were only about 5-6 companies that can import the material to China ten years ago, but now the number has increased to about 50-60, so it is not hard to get enough materials for the domestic consumption.
Besides, as for the usage of the material, we’d say it is more used in foundry industries as ladle filler sand, such as CFHI, China National Erzhong Group Co. in Sichuan and Dazhong Group in our local place of Dalian. Foundry chrome ore is also used in refractory industries as raw materials, such as the production of chrome-magnesite brick. Though the export amount of chrome-magnesite brick decreased to some extent, it will not bring great changes to the demand-supply relationship of foundry chrome ore as the consumption amount only takes small percentages in the whole market. There are more refractory companies in Shandong, Henan and northeast of China.
Asian Metal: Did “Energy Saving and Emission Reduction” policies from the government bring any influence to the foundry chrome ore market?
Wang: I don’t think so. The demand from our clients kept stable, with slight but continuous increase in 2010, especially in the later half of the year. I didn’t hear any of them influenced greatly by the policies.
Asian Metal: Except South African foundry chrome ore, there are also materials from other countries such as India and Philippine. What are the differences between these materials?
Wang: Relatively speaking, South African foundry chrome ore is more widely used in China. Due to special demand of consumers, foundry chrome ore from other countries is also used.
As for the differences, I would say Indian foundry chrome ore has a big advantage over South African materials, that is, the high content of chromium, which is about 52-58%, or even as high as 60%, while the content of South African materials is only about 44-46%, or 47% at the highest. With high chromium content, other impurity contents, such as iron, magnesium, calcium and aluminum, etc. becomes small. Iron may only accounts for slightly over 10%. In the production of chrome-magnesite brick, high chromium content material is more favorable, so Indian foundry chrome ore is more used in this field.
Asian Metal: What are the reasons for price increase of foundry chrome ore?
Wang: Price increase is mainly caused by foreign offers. Foreign suppliers have been increasing their prices since the third quarter of 2010. Right now the price is still going up, but slowly. It is rising production costs that forced most suppliers to raise their prices. With the recovery of the international economy, costs of labor and raw materials are going up. In 2008, the slow economy restricts the demand of the material, but the market is seeing an increasing demand in many countries, such as North Korea, Japan, etc., this may also make suppliers to seize the chance for more gains.
Asian Metal: How do you predict the market in the future?
Wang: It is hard to say exactly how the market will develop. But supported by production costs and strong demand, there are few possibilities for any price decrease. And I predict the increasing demand might force the market price to have a further increase, but the increase rate is uncertain.
Asian Metal: Dalian United Mining is doing big in the Chinese foundry chrome ore market. What are your development advantages?
Wang: We have advantages in the following parts. Firstly, our imported materials are directly sold to downstream consumers, so prices are more favorable than other domestic traders, who sold their materials to smaller traders, not to consumers.
Secondly, our import amount keeps at high levels, at about 50,000-100,000tpy, so we have no difficulty in supplying enough materials to our clients.
Also, we have a group of qualified staff members in every procedure. We work together for better service to our clients.
Asian Metal: Do you have any development plans in the near term?
Wang: We are paying more attention to do better of our current services. First, on the basis of ensuring the quality, we try to make the prices lower, which are more easily accepted by consumers. Second, we are trying to give better after-sale service, with the purpose of satisfying all our clients. Last but not the least, we are taking great efforts to maintain good relationship with our foreign suppliers to guarantee our supply.
Asian Metal: Thanks for your sharing, Mr. Wang. Wish a brighter future of Dalian United Mining Co., Ltd.
Wang: Thank you!