December 2017 Titanium Market Review

In the first half of this month, the stability of Panzhihua Titanium Mine was weaker. In the second half of the month, with the tight supply of China Mining, the concentrates gradually stabilized and the prices of individual small factories rebounded slightly. Manufacturers offer by the guide price, while the price of small factories generally lower than the manufacturers 200 ~ 250 yuan. With the opening of the Winter Games prelude, the monthly climb was relatively optimistic. The orders of the major miners have been basically discharged in the middle and late January of 2018, while the order of small factories was also released in early January.

Imported titanium ore in the rock climbing guide price down also loose, but the outer disk prices are still high, the month of imports of titanium ore mainstream tax concentrated in 1600 yuan to 1800 yuan / ton.

With the price of titanium ore raw material falling, the price of northern chlorinated slag also slightly retreated to RMB50 / tonne in the month. The weakening of the titanium dioxide market led to the southern sour slag prices have also declined, a decrease of 100 yuan to 200 yuan / ton. Titanium tetrachloride prices remain stable, still 6,000 yuan ~ 6200 yuan / ton. Although the downstream demand is not good, but the titanium tetrachloride enterprises adhere to the business strategy of not cutting prices or played the desired effect. In the middle of this month, the price of magnesium ingot caused the price of titanium sponge to rise accordingly. As of the end of December 2017, the quotation of 0 # titanium sponge was between 55,000 and 56,000 yuan / ton, and the actual price of the sign was slightly higher than that before.

The titanium dioxide market stabilized in the month. Although the downstream demand is still weak, but most companies no longer cut prices, but by controlling the production volume to control inventory pressure. After the price of titanium dioxide stabilized, the market turnover turned to be better. Downstream companies and exporters to wait and see, but started the normal procurement as needed.

Titanium sponge prices gradually implement price increases

With the recent cost of raw materials, titanium sponge has been pushed up, sponge titanium companies under tremendous cost pressures. Domestic sponge titanium enterprises have raised the price of products, price increases in the range of 1,000 yuan to 2,000 yuan / ton.

Sponge titanium market has just experienced price fluctuations in the early days when the price of sponge titanium raw magnesium ingot rose. As just out of the low-cost sale of the impact of the industry, the sponge titanium companies choose whether to raise prices, the performance was extremely cautious. Although the raw material costs fluctuated sharply, the sponge titanium enterprises only slightly raised the prices of their products and tried their best to stabilize the prices of their products under the premise of ensuring that they did not make any losses.

The downstream procurement companies in the face of rising prices of titanium sponge appears to be a little uncomfortable. Since the price of titanium sponge has just bottomed out and some downstream enterprises have reserved a certain amount of titanium sponge stock, the market generally maintains a long-term sustainability after the price of titanium sponge has risen. However, since the end of 2017, the price of sponge titanium raw material magnesium ingot soared. The downstream enterprises also considered the cost of sponge titanium increased, and gradually approved the price increase of sponge titanium. Therefore, the recent sponge titanium market to the new price after the hike to sign the order has increased, a slight increase in the price of titanium sponge.

Chlorinated slag business cost pressures further increased

Recent efforts in environmental protection in the northern region larger electrode manufacturers are greatly affected, resulting in electrode prices rose again. This also led to the cost pressure on northern titanium slag enterprises to further increase.

Since 2017, the electrode price in our country doubled up, which brought tremendous pressure to downstream enterprises such as titanium slag. Two months ago, the domestic electrode prices gradually stabilized, titanium slag plant cost pressures have eased. But now the electrode prices in the northern region once again began to rise, making the chlorinated slag enterprises in the north will once again face the pressure of rising costs. Judging from the current situation, the monthly price of chlorinated slag is unlikely to make it difficult for chlorinated slag enterprises to pass on the cost and the pressure on the operation of the enterprise will surely increase. Some chlorinated slag enterprises said that if the market conditions can not be improved in the future, or consider temporarily suspended.

According to the author's information, the current electrode price increases makes the cost of chlorinated slag increased by about 150 yuan / ton, if the future price of chlorinated slag can not be successfully raised, the vast majority of enterprises will be in a loss-making state.

Titanium dioxide enterprises cut production and maintenance market trend stable

Since winter, the market demand for titanium dioxide in China is obviously weaker. Subsequently, some companies, either overtly or implicitly, lowered their prices. Recently, as more and more enterprises adjust the output according to the demand of orders, the supply and demand of titanium dioxide market are generally stable, and the inventory of enterprises is controlled within a reasonable range, and the price of titanium dioxide gradually stabilizes.

According to a person in charge of an enterprise in the north, I disclosed to the author that since the beginning of winter, the company has been cutting down its output as required and its inventories are at a relatively low level. Therefore, when some enterprises lowered their prices some time ago, they did not follow the downward adjustment. Instead, they kept the price unchanged and arranged their production rationally to maintain the balance between production and sales. By mid to late December 2017, some enterprises in the South have started to cut production to meet the changes in demand in downstream markets, although they have not been restricted by environmental protection. As a result, the industry as a whole to reduce the operating rate of spontaneous, to ensure a new balance between supply and demand, thus ensuring the relative stability of product prices. And this industry as a whole, spontaneous formation of the cut price action is extremely rare, it effectively avoided the vicious price competition among enterprises in previous years, making the overall profitability of the industry maintained at a reasonable range, but also conducive to long-term healthy development .