End rigid demand controls indium prices

Asian Metal: Mr. Zhang, thank you for accepting the interview of Asian Metal. Firstly, please give us a brief introduction about the main business and production conditions of your company.

Zhang: Located in Jishan Industrial Park of Pengze County in Jiangxi province, our company is a professional chemical plant mainly producing zinc carbonate, zinc sulfate and indium metal, and has obtained relevant procedures of environmental protection. With the favorable running condition, we produce around 100tpy of indium ingot.

Asian Metal: Thank you for your brief introduction. Would you please introduce yourself to us?

Zhang: I invested and established Anhui Jinfeng Smelting Plant in Anhui in 1994, which is one of the first batch of private enterprises of indium ingot, and then I invested and founded smelting plants of lead, zinc and indium in Hunan, Guangdong and Jiangxi.

Asian Metal: The environmental protection inspection is very stringent all over the country and Hunan, the hometown of nonferrous metals, is also impacted. How do you deal with it?

Zhang: We have complete certificates and environmental protection procedures, and are well equipped with relevant matching processing facilities, which are able to achieve recycling and reusing and meet the requirement of the environmental protection; therefore, the environmental protection inspection will exert no influence on the normal production of our company. However, as the local lead and zinc smelters successively shut down for rectification affected by the inspection, supply of indium raw material declined sharply; therefore, our raw material purchases are confined and we are unable to run at full capacity, with also dropping sales of indium ingot recently.

Asian Metal: What kind of influence will Chinese stricter environmental protection inspection bring to the tendency of Indium market?

Zhang: The increasingly stringent environmental protection policies will suppress some illegal indium plants, and indium prices are sure to move up with fair competition, as production costs of indium increase resulting from rising environmental treatment charges and raw material supply becomes tight.

Asian Metal: Mr. Zhang predicted on 2015 8th World Indium & Germanium Forum that China would abolish the export quota of indium ingot, and how the export market pattern will change after the official abolishment of China’s export quota of indium ingot in 2017?

Zhang: With the abolishment of export quota of indium ingot, it is sure freer to export indium in 2017 and the market will become healthier, which will strengthen the liquidity of indium resources and help to achieve the reasonable allocation of global indium resources.

Asian Metal: Chinese indium ingot market has been comparatively weak since end of 2014, and what’s your opinion of the situation?

Zhang: After the market rectification in recent two years and affected by the incident of Fanya Metal Exchange, indium ingot prices have drawn near costs and hovered at low levels; currently, rigid demand controls the indium market. With the significant increase in domestic TIO target material output, the development of the CIGS solar energy industry and the participation of financial investment, demand for indium will pick up accordingly, which will drive indium prices to move up.

Asian Metal: Insiders pay close attention to the incident of Fanya Metal Exchange in recent years, and the indium stocks announced by the official website of Fanya Metal Exchange are up to 3,600t. Do you think this figure is credible or not?

Zhang: This is a sensitive topic in the indium industry and opinions vary, so I had better not make comments.

Asian Metal: Thank you once again for sharing your opinions of the market. We wish your company a better future!

Zhang: Thank you!