Chinese high grade ferrotitanium price to stand stable in Q1 2019

Asian Metal: Hello, Mr. Shen, thank you for taking Asian Metal's interview. Could you please introduce your primary business?

Mr. Shen: Hello! We mainly produce high grade ferrotitanium from waste titanium chip, titanium scrap, and titanium sponge99.1%max with an annual capacity of 20,000t. Our major downstream customers are steel mills.

Asian Metal: How is your production this year?

Mr. Shen: Our operating rate has been staying above 80% with the total output of ferrotitanium expected to be 18,000t this year. By the end of November, we had produced 16,500t of high grade ferrotitanium.

Asian Metal: What are your advantages compared with other ferrotitanium enterprises?

Mr. Shen: We mainly have advantages of metallurgical technology and personnel management. As for the metallurgical technology, we take titanium scrap as the raw material and advanced vacuum induction smelting furnace as the production equipment, enabling us to produce high grade ferrotitanium of various technical indicators and particle sizes. What's more, our ferrotitanium is of low aluminum and low gas with high recovery rate and excellent deoxygenation effect. Furthermore, the special steel produced by this kind of ferrotitanium has the characteristics of corrosion, high temperature and wear resistance and is widely used in aerospace and aviation. In regard to the personnel management, we adopt advanced personnel management methods to stimulate the enthusiasm and creativity of employees and maintain vitality.

Asian Metal: Prices for titanium scrap showed large fluctuations this year resulting from increased prices for titanium sponge. However, prices for high grade ferrotitanium are relatively stable. What do you think are the reasons?

Mr. Shen: As steel mills are the downstream end users of high grade ferrotitanium, the price trend of high grade ferrotitanium is dependent on steel mills' demand. As steel mills' demand has been relatively stable with no evident fluctuations this year, prices for high grade ferrotitanium are relatively stable. On the other hand, there are many kinds of titanium scraps and not all of them will see a sharp rise in prices despite higher titanium sponge prices, which eases our cost pressure to some extent.

Asian Metal: In November, high grade ferrotitanium prices in Europe and Russia dropped. How do you think the imported high grade ferrotitanium will affect the domestic market?

Mr. Shen: The decline of overseas prices for high grade ferrotitanium will have an impact on the domestic market, but this impact will also help maintain the stability of domestic prices to a certain degree. Domestic prices for titanium scrap have been quite unstable since China restricted the import of titanium scrap at the end of 2017. Many domestic companies imported cheaper high grade ferrotitanium from abroad to reduce the cost when domestic prices for titanium scrap moved up while those for high grade ferrotitanium were still low. As a result, domestic consumption volume of titanium scrap decreased and prices for the material lacked support, which guaranteed the stability of our production cost and selling prices for high grade ferrotitanium, bringing benefits to downstream steel mills. We have imported up to about 1,600t of high grade ferrotitanium so far this year.

Asian Metal: How do you see the price trend of high grade ferrotitanium in Q1 2019?

Mr. Shen: China's high grade ferrotitanium market will run steadily without large price fluctuations in Q1 2019. As prices for the material in Europe and Russia have dropped in recent two months and the prices are close to the level in China, some European steel mills begin sending enquiries and intend to sign long-term contracts to support the production of Q1 2019; although their target prices are lower than the current prices, the final transaction prices are expected to be around the current prices in view of the costs. Therefore, prices for high grade ferrotitanium will be mainly stable in Q1 2019.

Asian Metal: How will you deal with the market changes in the future?

Mr. Shen: We will continue to innovate, improve production technology, and enhance our hard power, so that our enterprise will be more competitive; increase profits and expand more channels by giving priority to the sales of self-produced ferrotitanium coupled with trading of the material; continue to adopt advanced personnel management methods to make our company more energetic and confident.

Asian Metal: Thank you for accepting our interview. Wish your company a bright future!