Asian Metal visits Hunan Rare Earth Institute, Changsha Asian Light Economic Trade, Oriental Scandium, Aerospace Magnet & Magneto, Codos Technology, Yiyang Hongyuan Rare Earth, Taojiang Ruilong Metal and other companies

From August 14 to August 16, 2017, Zhao Hao, president assistant of Asian Metal, and Eric Qiu, rare earth market analyst of Asian Metal visited Hunan Rare Earth Metal Material Research Institute (“Hunan Rare Earth Institute”), Changsha Asian Light Economic Trade Co, Ltd. (“Changsha Asian Light Economic Trade”), Hunan Oriental Scandium Co., Ltd. (“Oriental Yiyang Hongyuan Rare Earth Scandium”), Hunan Aerospace Magnet & Magneto Co., Ltd. (“Aerospace Magnet & Magneto”), Codos (Shanghai) Technology Development Co., Ltd. (“Codos Technology”), Co., Ltd. (“Yiyang Hongyuan Rare Earth”), Taojiang Ruilong Metal New Materials Co., Ltd. (“Taojiang Ruilong”) and other first-tier enterprises to investigate scandium, other rare earth and magnet product markets.

On the morning of August 14, Mr. Zhao and Eric Qiu visited Hunan Rare Earth Metal Material Research Institute and were warmly welcomed by Yu Tiehui, chief engineer, Cai Gangfeng, assistant to president, Su Zhengfu, director of General Business Department, Huang Meisong, director of Rare Earth Metal and Alloy Research Institute and Yao Maohai, director of Rare Earth Alloy Factory. Mr. Su explained the status quo of the rare earth magnet market, including customers’ acceptability and competition, and exchanged views on the tax management of scrap recovery. In addition, he introduced the status quo of monazite resources in Hunan in detail. Mr. Yu, Mr. Huang and Mr. Yao exchanged opinions with Asian Metal on scandium oxide, scandium metal, target materials, Al-Sc, RE-Al and RE-Mg alloys respectively. The two sides expressed their desire to strengthen cooperation and promote the popularization and civilian development of scandium products.

On the afternoon of August 14, Mr. Zhao and Eric Qiu, together with Li Huanxin, chairman of Codos Technology, visited Changsha Asian Light Economic Trade Co., Ltd. and talked with He Zhongyi, chairman of the company. Mr. He stated that their company which integrates the industry and commerce still holds nearly 500kg of scandium oxide in inventory after overseas demand for the material shrank from June 2014. In addition, their company produces spherical yttrium oxide suitable for thermal spray to make anti-corrosion coating and this product is mainly exported to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, United Status, German, etc. Moreover, their company also trades indium, vanadium, bismuth, antimony, mercury and other products. Mr. He fully affirmed the leading position of Asian Metal in providing market information about rare earth and minor metal products.

On the afternoon of August 14, Zhao Hao and Eric Qiu from Asian Metal, accompanied by Li Huanxin, chairman of Codos Technology, visited Hunan Oriental Scandium Co., Ltd. and were given warm reception by Chen Weiping, vice manager of Oriental Scandium and Zhou Caixia, foreign trader manager. Mr. Chen expressed that due to the sharp decline in overseas orders this year, domestic scandium oxide market sees extremely unbalanced supply and demand. He mentioned that most producers are out of production or halt production sometimes and fierce price competition is seen among those with advantage in raw material. He hoped that scandium suppliers can reach a consensus that scandium products shouldn’t be sold at low prices amid weak demand. He also pointed out that systematic research on scandium is inadequate in China and limited lateral funds and relatively small scale restrict the development of domestic scandium enterprises, while some practical scientific achievements in overseas market have not been popularized because of lack of understanding of scandium output. Therefore, he called on the state to conduct systematically longitudinal research on scandium products and looked forward to seeing Asian Metal act as an international bridge in the information promotion of the scandium market. In addition, the two sides discussed the application of fuel cells in detail.

On the morning of August 15, Asian Metal visited Hunan Aerospace Magnet & Magneto Co., Ltd. and talked with He Weiyang, vice chief engineer of Aerospace Magnet and Magneto and vice manager of the Rare Earth Permanent Business Division, and Li Shuai, general manager of Qingdao Branch. Mr. He introduced the basic situation of their NdFeB production to Asian Metal and pointed out that the low-performance NdFeB customers are very sensitive to the price of NdFeB. At present, their company mainly sells the material to middle and high-performance NdFeB customers and overseas market. He also said that the capital turnover cycle is long for the magnetic industry characterized by centralized development now. Mr. Li introduced the applications of NdFeB magnets in air conditioning, electrical machine, new energy vehicles and other downstream areas. Eric Qiu explained the price trend, supply and demand of rare earth metals, as well as the status quo of scrap recovery industry. The two sides discussed the progress in the permeation and hot pressing processes of NdFeB magnets. Finally, Mr. Zhao and Eric Qiu, accompanied by Mr. He and Mr. Li, looked around their company’s NdFeB production line.

On the afternoon of August 15, Asian Metal visited the scandium oxide production plant of Codos (Shanghai) Technology Development Co., Ltd. located in Xiangtan city. Accompanied by Yi Wei, manager of Codos Technology, Eric Qiu and Mr. Zhao looked around the workshop of scandium oxide and then talked with Li Huanxin, chairman of Codos Technology. Mr. Li introduced their company’s resources and technology and pointed out that the applications of scandium products are mainly restricted by the production cost and supply capacity and thus adjusting the proportion of product cost and increasing the downstream applications are the inevitable development trend. He expected Asian Metal to do a good job in docking supply and demand and the publicity of market information. He thought that the active expansion of applications in solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), alloys, targets and other downstream products will bring a good development opportunity for the scandium industry in the following three to five years.

On the morning of August 16, Mr. Zhao and Eric Qiu visited Yiyang Hongyuan Rare Earth Co., Ltd. and discussed with Wen Yihui, manager of the company, Xie Zhaohui, sales manager assistant, Wang Shugang, minister of Sales Department. Mr. Wen fully affirmed the international influence of Asian Metal on the pricing of rare earth products and suggested that Asian Metal further refine the product specifications. He expressed that the prices of rare earth products become more reasonable with stricter regulation on mine and environmental protection and enterprises have paid more attention to the R&D and production of differentiated products. Eric Qiu introduced the status quo of downstream magnet stocks and procurement. The two sides exchanged views on the market outlook of light rare earth products. Later, Eric Qiu and Mr. Zhao, accompanied by Mr. Wang, looked around their company’s separation and metal workshops.

On the afternoon of August 16, Eric Qiu, Mr. Zhao, together with Li Huanxi, chairman of Codos Technology, visited Taojiang Ruilong Metal New Materials Co., Ltd. and talked with Yu Tiehui, general manager of the company, Yang Zhiqiang, vice general manager, and Zeng Longjiang, minister of the Materials and Equipment Department. Mr. Yu stated that Hunan Rare Earth Metal Material Research Institute has done a lot of research and market exploration work on scandium oxide, scandium metal, target materials and Al-Sc alloys. He noted that the scandium market sees serious oversupply currently due to lack of downstream applications and systematic research, so it is urgent to adjust the supply and demand pattern. The two sides discussed the production cost of scandium and its application prospect in solid oxide fuel cell (SOFE), airplane, transport devices and alloy plates.

Asian Metal’s trip to Hunan ended. Asian Metal will continue to develop steadily and provide timely, accurate, comprehensive and authoritative information to customers of rare earth and related industries all over the world.