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. Zhuang Yongkai, Assistant of General Manager, Hunan Jinwang Enterprises Co., Ltd.

Aohan Huatai Metal Industry Co. Ltd., formerly known as Liaoning Huatai Metal Industry Co. Ltd, has produced 3 award-winning products including titanium series, zirconium series and high temperature alloy series. Operating on strict principle integrity, scientific management, and bold innovation. The company's goal is to become a leader in China's non-ferrous metal sector, and an influential modern enterprise in the world non-ferrous metal industry.
Zhuang Yongkai: Bismuth oxide market promising in the future
----Interview with Mr. Zhuang Yongkai, Assistant of General Manager, Hunan Jinwang Enterprises Co., Ltd.
Asian Metal visited Hunan Jinwang on June 24th and later interviewed Mr. Zhuang Yongkai, Assistant of General Manager, the one in charge of sales on bismuth oxide market performance and trend.
Part I Company Introduction
AM: Would you please introduce us your main product and the capacity?
Answer: Hunan Jinwang has an output of bismuth more than 1,000 metric tons for the moment while its output of bismuth salt amounts to 2,400 metric tons,including about 1,300 metric tons for bismuth oxide, all leading the counterparts in global markets. It owns the brand of JINWANG known well by many insiders.
AM:What do you think makes Jinwang unique to other counterparts?
Answer: Jinwang has built a Bismuth institute researching bismuth only in china and got more thirty patents. Our company has been awarded "the fifth Hunan youth science innovation famous collective "、"large paying taxes honestly organization"、"charitable contrihute model organization"、"prejecting organization in contributing fund encouraging education"etc.
Jinwang has pre-registered REACH in Europe and got the passport in European market to sell our products."JINWANG" brand has been chosen as "HuNan famous brands"etc.Our products have been sold to Japan,Beligium and American market with the high praise in quality by Dupont、BASF、MCP and other large company in the word.
Part II Market performance
AM: What is current market situation of bismuth oxide?
Answer: For the moment, Jinwang produces about 80-90 metric tons of bismuth oxide monthly, totaling the output per year to over 1,000 metric tons. Jinwang is confident that they will achieve the sales goal of over 1,000 metric tons this year, doubled from that in the previous year.
The current price in the spot market is as high as RMB166,000-168,000/t while due to advantages of production cost, Jinwang could bear a price in the range of RMB164,000-166,000/t.
AM: Could you please give a brief introduction to the production of bismuth and bismuth oxide?
Answer: On the supply side, Jinwang also has tried to acquire some mines though for the moment the state-owned companies still have more priorities. As bismuth is usually contained in copper, zinc and lead ores and seldom has independent mine, the main source of the material comes from separation of copper,lead-zinc ore. And in Yongxing, Hunan and other areas, the production of silver also gets some crude bismuth. Jinwang also has been trying to import some waste containing bismuth from foreign countries. It is not an easy procedure even if you have the qualification and there is an import duty of 6.5%.
On the production technique, Jinwang has adopting both wet process and pyrometallurgical process. The production cost of the latter is much cheaper.
However, many end users from the traditional electronics and coating industry has been accustomed to using bismuth oxide produced through pyrometallurgical process. The demand for bismuth oxide originated by pyrometallurgical process mainly comes from battery industry, which is relatively small in China for the moment.
AM: What is the difference between these two methods?
Answer: There are usually some inquiries for bismuth oxide in granule that can only be produced by wet process while the pyrometallurgical process goes into powder. We think the output from wet process should be much more in current industry.
We export most of our product produced by pyrometallurigical process and already have some long term orders, pricing on the MB offers. Generally speaking, the foreign buyers could afford relatively higher prices.
AM: What do you think about the future development of bismuth market?
Answer: Demand of both bismuth and bismuth oxide are increasing. And Jinwang sometimes has to purchase bismuth from other producers to meet the demand.
AM: And what about the future plan of Jinwang?
Answer: Our plant has a capacity of around 1,000 metric tons for bismuth ingot which is in fully operation with an output of 1,100-1,200 metric tons per year.
We are planning to switch to another plant in the Nonferrous Metal Industrial Park in Chenzhou. The new smelter to start operation late next June will enlarge its output to 4,000 metric tons per year.
We are confident that the supply of bismuth or bismuth oxide will increase to about 1/3 of the global market output in 2012 or 2013.
AM: Do you have any impression of other counterparts?
Answer: There are some other major producers of bismuth oxide in China as well. MCP has a plant in Shangyu, Zhejiang while Xianyang Yuehua also has been producing bismuth oxide for long. In Changde, Hunan, there is another producer (Yaohong Nano Technology).
We think each company has its own different market orientation, sales strategy and production cost. We heard that Yuehua just feels ready to sell after a profit of RMB2,000-3,000/t while Dangsheng could not bear such a low price due to higher costs from management, sales cost and financial burden after its listing.
Part III Market perspective
AM: What do you think about the future development of bismuth industry?
Answer: Currently, we have a tight cooperation with MCP who purchases not only bismuth ingot but also bismuth oxide from us. As they also deal in some trading, demand is large from MCP.
Meanwhile, we also sell directly to BASF from Germany, Dupont from the United States. We think later on, there will be some companies leading the bismuth industry. MCP will still be a main player in global markets while Hunan Bismuth and Hunan Jinwang will grow into other major participants.
We have plans of establishing agents in Germany and United States as well to enlarge our business scope.
For the moment, we already has an office in Shanghai where the transition of minor metals is becoming more and more active.
AM: Anything else to add on?
Answer: In the last few years, Jinwang has been focusing on the export market and somewhat neglected the domestic market. Since last year, we have been more active in domestic market. The cooperation between us and the media not only lies in making offers, but also supply conditions of raw material, market performance and so on. We hope the media will take into consideration of comprehensive information from each side of the market to build a more objective information platform.
Jinwang consistently insists on the guideline of innovation,recycling economy and combination of production and investigation,devotes into the development of intensive processing of bismuth. With the mission of "stengthening the country and returning to the society",we adhere to the management policy of"People-oriented, institutional innovation, winning brand"and build Jinwang to be an open international enterprises groups.