Industrial upgrading and gradual improvement of export structure
The technical difficulty of tungsten industry mainly lies in the deep processing. China's cemented carbide is gradually upgrading to high-precision and high-grade products.From the perspective of industrial chain, tungsten ore is processed by coarse crushing, gravity beneficiation and concentration to obtain tungsten concentrate; then ammonium Paratungstate Crystal with high purity and complete crystal varieties can be obtained through alkali pressure boiling, ion exchange, evaporation crystallization and other technologies; after calcination of ammonium paratungstate, tungsten oxide with yellow, blue, purple and other colors can be obtained; next, tungsten powder can be obtained by hydrogen reduction method and tungsten carbide powder can be obtained by carbonization method; finally, tungsten carbide powder can be obtained by hydrogen reduction method The cemented carbide was prepared by die pressing and extrusion.
According to the statistics of China Tungsten Industry Association, in 2018, China's apt output is 120000 tons (224000 tons), tungsten powder output is 50000 tons (80000 tons), ferrotungsten output is 7200 tons (30000 tons), of which 50%, 40% and 60% are concentrated in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, while the downstream carbide production enterprises are 75 in China, mainly distributed in Hunan (14) and Sichuan (11) The output of the two provinces accounts for more than 50% of the national total.
From the perspective of the whole industrial chain, China's tungsten products enterprises are distributed in "many, small and scattered" areas, with serious overcapacity at the middle and low end. The quality and price of deep-processing products are far from that of foreign countries. However, the high-grade cemented carbide with high performance and high precision still relies on foreign imports, and the structural contradiction of "production is dominated by middle and low-end smelting, and export is dominated by primary and intermediate products" still exists.
Only from the customs data, the comparison between the import and export prices of cemented carbide products is obvious, and the domestic export price is about one tenth of the domestic import price. There is still a large space for the development of cemented carbide products in China.
The technical and product quality barriers of the industry come from the high standards and requirements of downstream processing for raw material powder morphology, particle size, chemical purity and other indicators. From the perspective of the national tungsten industry development plan, China's resource end will improve the mineral utilization rate in the future, especially the scheelite smelting process that determines the cost control ability of enterprises; apt will focus on the development of new green smelting process; research and development of high-quality tungsten carbide powder technology upgrading. As one of the 12 typical basic materials in China, cemented carbide will strive to break through the market of high-end products and the development and application of tungsten alloy deep processing products with special properties.
At present, some tungsten products enterprises in China have introduced domestic advanced technology and equipment to carry out technology absorption, transformation and independent research and development, and have made localization in some key equipment such as spray drying, gas pressure sintering and other equipment. In the future, with the continuous improvement of cemented carbide extrusion molding, gas pressure sintering and other technology and equipment level, China's Tungsten deep-processing products will gradually move towards the direction of high performance, high precision and high added value, which is expected to rank among the world's advanced tungsten industry.
Tungsten demand remains stable and high-end cemented carbide has broad market space.
The growth rate of global tungsten consumption is stable: in the case of no breakthrough development in tungsten application field, the global tungsten demand shows steady growth. From 2012 to 2016, the global tungsten consumption remained at about 65000 tons. China is the world's largest consumer, accounting for 53%, and other major consumer regions include Europe, the United States, Japan and Russia. In 2018, China's tungsten concentrate consumption was 137800 tons (equivalent to WO3 65%).
Cemented carbide is the main consumption field in the downstream of tungsten, and there is still a large growth space in China's application: from the consumption structure of tungsten products, the downstream application of tungsten includes tungsten steel, tungsten material, tungsten chemical industry and cemented carbide, among which cemented carbide is the main consumption field of tungsten. Globally, cemented carbide accounts for more than half of tungsten consumption. Developed countries are in the leading position in tungsten technology application research and development. Therefore, cemented carbide accounts for 72% of the demand structure. However, as a large country of tungsten resources, the application of tungsten is relatively backward in China. The traditional iron and steel smelting field still accounts for a large proportion. Although the proportion of cemented carbide has been increasing year by year, it is only 45% at present. With the continuous upgrading of China's high-end industry and manufacturing industry, the demand for cemented carbide still has a large growth space.
