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 Zhang Yinlin, General manager of Baoji Dingding Titanium products Co., Ltd.

Baoji Dingding Titanium products Co., Ltd. is a professional production manufacturer of titanium products, and the company mainly produces titanium rod, alloyed titanium bar, titanium tube, titanium plate, alloyed titanium tube, titanium wire, titanium standard parts, titanium rings, titanium band, titanium target, etc. This company originated from Jiuding Titanium products factory in Jintai district, Baoji city, and now it is a titanium production industrial company through 10 years of hard work.
Zhang Yinlin: Titanium products market keeps improving in fourth quarter
----Interview with Zhang Yinlin, General manager of Baoji Dingding Titanium products Co., Ltd.
Asian Metal:Thank you for accepting the interview. Firstly, could you comment on the current titanium products market?
Mr. Zhang: As to the market of titanium products, no matter in domestic or international market, the demand of all kind of titanium products kept slow in August, which is worse than it was in July, as a result, titanium products market was down to the valley of sale and production. What’s more, titanium sponge price had moved down again and again in the past few months, the price of titanium products also slid down accordingly. Now the price closes to the cost bottom line with little profile left to producers and traders.
Asian Metal:Recently, Chinese titanium sponge producers increased the price greatly in spite of slow demand, how do you think about this issue?
Mr. Zhang: At the very first, we producers of titanium products prefer titanium sponge price to go up because we can increase the price of titanium products accordingly, then, the whole titanium market is likely to move up. The former price of titanium sponge had gone down to RMB52,000/t which is nearly to the cost, and it also blocked down the way for titanium products to go up price. However, as to the main consumer of titanium sponge, we also meets slow demand which means the demand for titanium sponge is slow. For lacking support of strong demand, I think the high titanium sponge price will not hold for a long time.
Asian Metal: Currently, titanium products market keeps slow with the price hovering at a low level, can you give us a brief introduction of the situation of operating in your company?
Mr. Zhang: Our company was originally from the former Baoji Jiuding Titanium products Factory, which built in 1999, with the main products of all kinds of titanium and titanium alloy products. In 2007, the company was changed its name to Baoji Dingding Titanium Products Co., Ltd., and increased the business of foreign trade. Currently our company has 3 sets of process furnaces, with the production capacity of 2-3 tons of titanium products per day. From the very first moment, we pay much attention to ensure the quality, machinery and equipment, management, raw materials, workshop of the production, and now we establish a good long-term partnership with a lot of consumers based on 10 years of unremitting efforts. Therefore, we still received stable orders from regular consumers without any loss of the output in spite of slow demand in the market.
Asian Metal:At present the company also strengthens the business of foreign trade slowly and smoothly, how do you think of the export for titanium products?
Mr. Zhang: In fact, we do not start foreign business for a long time, but we focused the energy on ensuring the quality of our production from the beginning in order to enhance the credibility gradually. You know, the most important factor which foreign consumers pay attention is the company's reputation, and it will take a long period to identify the suppliers for foreign consumers. However, once the trust is already established, they will sign a long-term contract for cooperating. Now we are looking for our customers in worldwide, and the export volume is still relatively small, which is generally less than 2 tons for each. What’s more, as to the type of productions for exporting, we mainly export titanium rod and titanium plate.
Asian Metal:Now the government strongly advises producers to renew the equipment to environmental ones, and what is your opinion of updating environmental equipment?
Mr. Zhang: First of all, we are favor of environmental protection equipment, for that equipment is not only protect the environment but also reduce the cost of producing, and we producers all prefer to use the new equipment. However, the cost of environmental protection equipment is very expensive which uses natural gas as raw material, meanwhile, it needs to pull a long pipeline to supply raw materials. Currently, we use electric furnace and reverberatory furnace, with the lengthen of the furnaces only 2-3 meters, and one furnace can produce about 2-3 tons per day. These furnaces, which are our most titanium production of commercial production furnace, are convenient for small orders. However, environmental protection equipment stoves are bigger with the length of about 6 meters, which is fit for producing big titanium rod and titanium ingots, it is not very flexibility and is not apply for small orders. In fact, all kinds of equipment have its own advantages, but the investment for environmental protection titanium equipment is too expensive for private enterprises with slower effective.
Asian Metal: Do you have any suggestion for the market?
Mr. Zhang: Now the domestic market of titanium is still a little bit disordered, and there are still some producers using low price to compete with others when it is in slack season, even few producers reduce the quality to earn benefit and added some titanium scrap in the material. So the quality is not stable which block the development of Chinese titanium products market. We hope the state or some organization can rectify and regulate the market and push it up smoothly.
Asian Metal:What is the expectation of the future market in the fourth quarter of the year?
Mr. Zhang: Generally speaking, the trend of titanium products will improve in the fourth quarter, but current whole market is not stable. According to the regular pattern of the market in the past few years, September and October is the warm season of the material though there is no sign for improvement. However, the orders from downstream purchasers become more, so it is likely to go up in the fourth quarter.