Global magnesium matters. (News).

FOREIGN INVESTORS

Northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, one of the three major magnesium production bases in China, is increasingly attracting foreign investors. Magnesium researchers and manufacturers from many other countries including the US, France, Australia, Britain, Germany,

A company from Norway plans to work with Ningxia to produce and process magnesium products. A joint venture between Ningxia and Japan now yields 2,000 tonnes a year, making it one of the three leading magnesium enterprises in China.

Ningxia is rich in coal and natural gas resources and has a huge reserve of dolostone, a key material for processing magnesium. Dry climatic conditions in the region are also favourable for producing the metal, according to experts.

At present, Ningxia has 14 magnesium production enterprises, which produce more than 11,700 tonnes of magnesium annually, or 10% of the national total. Some 90% of the region's magnesium output is exported to over 20 countries and includes the United States, Germany and Japan.

Ma Junting, vice chairman of the regional government, says that Ningxia's magnesium export value is expected to exceed US$20 million this year and reach US$40 million next year. Magnesium is widely used in handsets, laptop computers, small video cameras and other electronic industrial products. The world's total output of magnesium for 2000 was more than 470,000 tonnes.

NEW WEB SITE

Noranda Magnesium has launched its own web site under the address www.norandamagnesium.com with the objective to procure insight into the company and the magnesium industry. The company has designed the new web site to aid and inform its customers about its magnesium products, research and developments, and to provide enriched technical and customer services that are user friendly for anyone with access to the Internet.

"Noranda Magnesium enters the magnesium market with a wealth of experience, technically and commercially", says Bob VanFleteren, manager of marketing and sales, about the newly launched site. We're pleased to offer some of our expertise to a broad audience, by way of this user friendly, professional website."

Visitors will find a magnesium overview, description of products, applications and case studies, tips on working with magnesium and other useful information.

EUROPEAN MARKET

Magnesium prices have remained at around $1,900 per tonne during the first quarter of 2001 and look unlikely to rise due to continued pressure from Chinese imports, according to market sources.

Although the European Commission doubled the antidumping duty on Chinese ingots last year, cheaper material is still finding its way onto the market in the form of waste and scrap. A source at a Western producer said he believed that the imports could amount to 5,000-6,000 tonnes per year. "It takes a while for the statistics to come through but I expect shipments of regular ingot will have almost stopped from China while the scrap will see a huge increase," he said

The producer source is also expecting imports of magnesium granules and alloys to increase. "The question is where is the alloy being used, because only certain diecasting alloys are meant to be coming in, he said, adding that he would like to see some kind of investigation into the imports taking place.

Some traders said that the scrap material being imported was a relatively small amount. "A few traders have been buying in the ingots that have had the sloping ends cut off. They are scrap material but they are still made up of pure magnesium," said one trader, who added that he did not think that the quantities involved were substantial enough to cause a big impact on the market.

However, both traders and producers agreed that the current prices for magnesium in Europe are too low to be sustained for a long period. "The European prices can't go any lower, none of the Western producers can make money and it can't persist at these levels, so something has to happen," one producer commented.