It was reported the first 120 kg sapphire crystal is produced in Nanchang optical valley. The largest sapphire production will not only further promote Jiangxi LED lighting industry, smart phone industry development, but also will greatly promote the development of China tungsten and molybdenum industry development.

 

Nanchang High-tech Zone is the core area of Nanchang optical valley, mainly to R & D strength silicon-based LED technology and applications, and to develop sapphire substrate LED chips production. Sapphire is the main material for LED preparing, the largest sapphire crystal produced by this institution, which will promote the development of LED technology, greatly expanded the application of LED light. It expected in 2020 the earnings of LED industry will be more than one hundred billion RMB, accounting for 15% of China industry revenue which the silicon substrate LED technology revenue will reach fifty billion RMB. Sapphire crystal has high strength and good wear resistance, so it is commonly used in the smart phone industry, often used to make phone lens cover, screen and home button and so on. Therefore, the development of largest sapphire can promote smart phone industry development. In addition, the sapphire crystal also can use in infrared military installations, satellite space technology, and high-intensity laser light as an important window material.

 

Sapphire production need to melt Al2O3 raw material at 2050 ℃, and then after cooling to form crystallized by a single crystal. Therefore, sapphire crystal growth furnace is used for crystal growth usually made of tungsten thermal field with excellent high temperature property, including tungsten crucible, columns, trays, chassis and other components. Tungsten thermal field is the central part of sapphire crystal growth equipment and is made of the heat, the support, the insulation three systems and seedholder and other accessory. High quality thermal field products will significant influence sapphire crystal quality. Sapphire crystals are widely used in many industries, so it is conducive to the development of tungsten thermal field and other related industries.

Sewer is the integral part of infrastructure in a city which plays an irreplaceable role in the living environment of safety, construction and comfortable. In recent years, the corrosion degradation has caused many social problems, such as the collapse of the road, and thus attracted widespread attention.

 

Sewer corrosion mainly brought out by the oxidation of sulfur-oxidizing bacteria and generated the sulfuric acid and hydrogen sulfide which constantly corrode the pipe surface. In the past, anti-corrosion protection of concrete structures sewer facility is mainly used in the surface coating or a coating method for coating a sheet of resin-based material. These methods have a big challenge in terms of construction; besides, the adhesion and anti-scratch is weak; with relatively short life (only 3 to 6 years). Therefore, a new material with strong anti-corrosion is called.

 

Recently, studies have shown that tungsten oxide and nickel as the antimicrobial agent doped in the concrete, pays the role of inhibiting the sulfur-oxidizing bacteria antibacterial activity, is a new anti-corrosion material with excellent durability. Sulfur oxidizing bacteria is acidophilus which the optimum growth pH range is 2~3; tungsten oxide dissolved in the acid which can inhibit the growth of sulfur-oxidizing bacteria with the joint function of nickel, thereby suppressing the formation of sulfuric acid. Compared to ordinary concrete, the corrosion depth of this concrete is only 1/5 of it, and the sulfur penetration depth of about 1/4 of it; presumably, that anti-bacterial concrete contains mixtures of tungsten oxide and nickel can ensure 50 years of standard service life. In addition, the experimental results of elution maximum body and toxicity of the antimicrobial concrete have shown that its toxicity is very low and does not cause adverse effects on the environment; what the most importantly is that as a building material, it doesn’t causes any negative effect compressive strength to concrete.

2016 PDC Chinese tryout is in full swing, the competition attracts many darts fans to participate, they want to show their strength in a fair and just stadium, and duke it out with many excellent dart players. Darts’ use plays an important role in a dart competition it can be described that it is essential for the final result. Tungsten darts have excellent hand feeling and are easy to control, that is why they can be welcomed by many darts players. The PDC's tryout is planning to divide into 10 tryout stations, including the successful ending of April 2 Qingdao station, April 9 Guangzhou station. In these 10 tryout stations, the first three stations is the selection of the World Cup 2016 qualification; the middle four stations, namely stations 4-7 is the selection of Shanghai Masters qualification; the last three stations is the selection of World Championships qualifications.

 

The third tryout trials will be carried out in Ningbo, April 23. The first two stations, Dawei Zhang gained the total score of 2: 1 and defeated the second player Li Weihong, got the first qualification of PDC World Cup 2016; and players Ouyang Bin, who came from Hunan 2: 1 defeated his opponent Hu Ling, who came from Hubei and won the victory in Guangzhou station. The China World Cup qualifying finals will also be held in Ningbo in April 24, therefore to select the top two players and they are on behalf of China to participate in the 2016 World Cup held in Germany in June 2016. Since the later tryouts are not associated with World Cup qualifications tryout, and therefore not yet notified the specific time and place of the game, and the subsequent news that we will follow closely. As a kind of the high-quality darts with a stable performance, high density, small air resistance, and non-toxic and environmentally friendly, tungsten darts have its own outstanding and excellent performance and are assisting for the 2016 PDC Chinese tryout.

 

In early March 2016, Chinese Darts Association issued the notice about the 2016 China University’s Darts League (CUDL). It is composed of races and finals; the playing time is from the beginning of April 2016 until the end of December. The races’ places can be arranged in chronological order as follows: Beijing Station in April, Hainan Station in May, Shanghai Station in June, Tianjin Station in July, Qingdao Station in August, Harbin Station in September, Guangzhou station in October, Jinan Station in November, and Nanjing Station in December. Contestants are college students of major colleges and universities in the way of the team or group. Each school can choose to send four teams; each team must be not less than 4 people and have a female member at least. Competition is divided into community groups, women's groups and men's groups, if the group integration standings of the previous 64, women's and men's athlete's personal ranking the first 128, then can enter CUDL finals.

 

This competition obtained great attentions of China’s major colleges and universities, and the darts that being welcomed by many participants are mainly tungsten dart. Usually tungsten dart for game is made of 90% tungsten, because the tungsten content is too high will increase the brittleness of darts, it will occur the fracture problem if do not use carefully. Due to the high density property of tungsten alloy, it can achieve high specific gravity with small size. That tungsten darts volume can be made very small, but the weight and hand feeling is still the same, and will be very easy to carry. That is why a tungsten dart is welcomed by people. In addition, tungsten dart with good stability and maneuverability is easy to control, so it is the first choice of dart for many people in competition, and being greatly popular among the participants of CUDL. We will continue to focus on the subsequent game messages.

Tungsten is a valuable scarce resource, which takes about 0.001% in the earth crust. It is referred as “Tooth of Industry” because of its properties of high melting point, density, hardness. Tungsten and its products are widely used in modern industry, which is an important non-renewable mineral resource, its development closely link with national economic lifelines and security. To some extent, the situation of tungsten export over the years reflected the changes of China tungsten industry competitiveness in the international market; in 2015, China canceled the export quota and turned to the export license management system, which means tungsten manufacturers will have to rely on technology in order to survive, companies should focus on the optimization of high, refined, sharp and deep processing.

 

As we all know, the higher technical content tungsten product has, the higher value is will be. The breakthrough of improving competitiveness in Tungsten industry chain should be primarily in four areas of tungsten powder, tungsten carbide powder, tungsten materials and its special-shaped and tungsten carbide deep-processing products.

 

Over the last decade from Chinese tungsten export situation analysis, tungsten product export structure should be further optimized, and developed the high value-added products, the exported proportion of application products increased year by year, the international competitiveness of Chinese tungsten products increased year by year. However, the Chinese tungsten products deep processing technology still has a large gap comparing with the international advanced level. In future, the focus of the tungsten industry should be narrowing the technology gap of tungsten application compared with advanced foreign enterprises for some time. Accelerate the elimination of backward production capacity; accelerate the development of products with independent intellectual property rights of tungsten manufacturing technology for further enhancing the competitiveness of China tungsten industry. Such as the development of carbide cutting tools, mining tools, wear resistance parts and other leading products; developing high-properties of tungsten wire, as well as ultra-thin, ultra-large sheets of tungsten, new tungsten-based material applied in national defense, aerospace, military industry ect..

1. Structure of tungsten products export and import analysis

By 2015, intermediate goods accounted for 69.94% of total export, being the fourth year which below 80% of the whole and the second year for consecutive less than 70%; the export of tungsten material, tungsten carbide accounted for 30.06% of total exports, the pattern that exports tungsten intermediate products as the center gradually change. Tungsten concentrate still being the center of tungsten products import, accounting for 72.79% of total imports, down 0.28 percentage points, and the proportion continued to decline.

 

2. Import and export tungsten products market analysis

Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea are the four main destinations for Chinese export tungsten products. By 2015, the amount of tungsten product export to South Korea grew 22.98 percent, while the amount of tungsten products exports to Europe, the United States and Japan fell down respectively 2.83%, 34.94% and 4.84%. Among them, American decline prominently, first one maybe the reducing and stopping production oil, shale gas drilling in US; the second is the US tungsten manufacturer opened up new sources of raw materials. The amount of tungsten products which exports to the above four countries accounted for 87.07% of total exports, decreasing 1.82 percentage points compared with 2014. Wherein the amount exported to Europe, America, Japan and South Korea respectively account for the total of 26.11%, 13.93%, 25.39% and 21.64%; besides South Korea and Europe accounted respectively decline for 6.63% and 0.23% over the same period. European and Japanese market is relatively stable; the reducing rate of United States is the largest; while South Korea increasing significantly.

 

By 2015, the amount of tungsten which China imported from Asia, Europe, Africa and North America accounted for respectively 44.73%, 27.29%, 18.40% and 4.94%, imported from the four region above accounting for 95.36% of total imported tungsten products, increasing 5.69% over the same period; imported from Asia grew 1.46% over the same period, imported from Europe, Africa and North America decreased respectively 45.09%, 5.72% and 49.12%. By 2015, China imported tungsten concentrate from Mongolia, the Russian Federation, Rwanda, Myanmar and Brazil accounted for 84.22 percent of total imports of tungsten concentrate, increasing 5.58% over the same period. The amount of tungsten concentrate imported from Mongolia, the Russian Federation, Rwanda, Myanmar and Brazil takes respectively 24.22%, 21.87%, 10.05% and 3.26% of the total; Mongolia, Rwanda and Myanmar increased 8.99%, 9.46%, 7.99% compared to 2014, the Russian Federation and Brazil decreased 16.10% and 4.76% respectively. The top 5 tungsten ore sources changed, Mongolia went up to No.1 from the second, the Russian Federation decreased to the second from No.1, Rwanda held the NO.3 which unchanged, Myanmar moved to No.4 from NO.8, Brazil dropped to NO.5 from NO.4. By 2015, there were no tungsten ore importing from Canada and the Vietnamese which have ever been the main source.

1. Export Price Analysis

By the year 2015, APT price offer by the British Metal Bulletin is in the range of 165~335 USD/mtu, from 1300 USD/mtu in the end of Jan. declined shock to 170 USD/mtu in Nov., the difference between highest and lowest annual price is 50.75%. The comprehensive annual export price of Chinese tungsten (the total amount of export/export total metal content, excluding carbide) is 35,592.48 USD/T.W, down 29.68% over 2014; the annual average price declined in nearly five years, and 2015 decreased greatly.

 

The tungsten consolidated average export price showed a shock downward trend in 2015; at the end of this year, the price fell down about 40.63% compared with the beginning. Export average price is 44,640.92 USD/T W which is the highest point of this year; exports average price in December 26,504.42 USD /T W which is the lowest of this year. At December, the average export price of ammonium paratungstate, iron tungsten and tungsten wire fell respectively 39.45%, 52.86% and 16.21% compared with January, the export price of primary tungsten and deep processing tungsten products are both declined significantly; while the decline rate of deep processing tungsten products is relatively small; the large decline rate of iron tungsten maybe cause by the cancel 20% of export provisional tax.

 

2. Import price analysis

By the year 2015, the annual average price of imports of tungsten products (including imports of tungsten concentrate) is 29,970.75 USD/T W, down 32.36%. Among them, the average import price of tungsten concentrate is 14,445.65 USD/T W, down 47.21%. Excluding the influence of tungsten concentrate, the average import price of tungsten products is 71,504.46 USD/T W, down 20.81%. In the case of primary tungsten products prices fell sharply, import prices raised 10.69%, the degree of declining overall in flat. Compared with 2014, the import and export of tungsten material price difference narrowing margin, but tungsten wire magnitude amplification. The ratio between average annual export and import price of tungsten metal and tungsten wire were respectively 5.54 and 5.94 times.

By the year 2015, 19,905.15t of Chinese tungsten products (metal content, excluding carbide, the same below) exported, which is 3.96% less than that in 2014, the export amount of 708 million US dollars 32.46% less than that in 2014. Among them, the export quota of the original tungsten (including exports Free Trade Zone) was 13,218.47t, down 759.42t, fell 5.43%, was 85.83% the quota in 2014.

 

Chinese imported tungsten 3,418.89t (the amount of metal containing tungsten concentrate, the same below), fell 27.11%, and the imported amount is USD 102 million, down 50.69%. Among them, tungsten concentrates imported 2,488.65t, down 27.3%.

 

1. Imported amount analysis

In recent years, the level of Chinese imported tungsten is maintaining at 4,000~6,000t (metal content), however the amount is dropping to less than 4,000t in 2015. Tungsten concentrate is the mainly imported, tungsten powder and tungsten materials accounts for 2.21% of total tungsten products imported, and the proportion continued to decline.

 

In 2015, tungsten concentrate shares 2,488.65t in the China mainly imports of tungsten products, accounting for 72.79% of total imports, which is 27.39% less than that in 2014; sodium tungstate 260.50t, down 51.59%; mixture tungsten materials 250.27t, down 28.77%.

 

2. Exported amount analysis

In 2015, the Chinese net-exported amount of tungsten products is 16,486.26t, an increase of 2.81%; net-exported of USD 606 million, down 27.94%. According to the reporting data counted by ITIA from 26 member units, carbide exported 5,115.04t (convert to tungsten) in 2015 which is accounting for 29.97% of total carbide production, down 7.40%, 383 million US dollars, down 14.43 percent, accounting for 53.79% of total exports carbide enterprises, up by a positive growth turned to negative growth.

 

By 2015, the average monthly exported amount of Chinese tungsten (metal content) was 1,658.76t, down 68.37t, fell 3.96%, but in November and December, the chain exports showed a large increase, the amount in December reached more than 2,000t which means foreign companies began to replenish inventories, thus international demand for tungsten turned positive.

 

The exports of tungsten trioxide, blue tungsten oxide, ammonium paratungstate, ammonium metatungstate, mix material and tungsten wire fell respectively 0.14%, 24.89%, 44.67%, 18.45%, 20.85% and 9.14%; however, the exports of tungsten carbide, iron tungsten and tungsten powder increased respectively by 52.61%, 264.58% and 13.80%. Canceling 20% provisional export tariff on iron tungsten brought its significantly increased. The total exports of primary tungsten (original quota tungsten) 13,218.47t, down 759.42t, fell 5.43%.