Asian Metal visits two major Hebei-based aluminum alloy plants

Friday Gao, manager of base metal department and senior analyst of aluminum, and Nancy Zhang, analyst of aluminum alloy of Asian Metal, visited Baoding Exquisite Auto Aluminum Alloy Manufacture Co., Ltd and Hebei Lizhong Nonferrous Metals Group Co., Ltd on 3 August 2012, the two major producers of aluminum alloy ingot in Hebei.

Both sides friendly communicated about the current situation of Chinese aluminum alloy ingot market and its tendency.

Baoding Exquisite Auto Aluminum Alloy Manufacture Co., Ltd is located in Great Wall motor parts industrial park of Shunping, Baoding. Started in July, 2011, the company is running at aluminum alloy ingot capacity of around 50,000tpy.

Using aluminum ingot as materials mostly, the company mainly supplies its products to downstream motors industry only. A small part of its products are consumed by their own aluminum casting plant in the industrial park. Zhang Xiubao, the general manager of Exquisite Auto Aluminum Alloy, said that Chinese recycled aluminum alloy capacities are expanding greatly this year and the industry faces integration. Continuously decreasing offers from large-scaled plants put more pressure to other middle and small-sized plants. The biggest problem producers are facing is the shrinking profit margin

Hebei Lizhong Nonferrous Metals Group Co., Ltd is a subsidiary of Lizhong Group, locaed in Qingyuan of Baoding city. Purchasing aluminum ingot as materials, the company has aluminum alloy capacity of 60,000tpy and focuses on high-end products. Customers are mainly from auto, high-speed railway and defense industries.

Li Jingshan, manager of sales department Ⅱ, said that though offers of their products are almost the highest in Chinese market at present in view of the high quality, their sales have not decreased too much under slack season. He also indicted that offers from recycled aluminum alloy plants are at low levels currently, whose products are mainly focusing on middle and low-level markets.