Australia’s LNG exports grew 23% in 2018, bringing total exports to a record 69.5 million tons and export revenue to a 68% increase of about A$43.3 billion, according to data released recently by the Australian Energy Consulting Company Energy Survey. According to the report, with the completion and commissioning of large-scale liquefied natural gas projects in Northwest Australia, Australia’s liquefied natural gas exports will continue to grow strongly in 2019.

LNG is one of Australia’s main export earning commodities, second only to coal and iron ore. At present, Australia has surpassed Qatar as the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas and China’s largest supplier of liquefied natural gas. As of November 2018, 46% of China’s LNG imports came from Australia. The huge energy demand in the Chinese market stimulated Australia to expand LNG investment and export.

Australia has a huge potential for natural gas development. In recent years, the development of liquefied natural gas (LNG) has been booming. Domestic and foreign investment has exceeded 200 billion US dollars. At the end of 2018, two LNG projects in Darwin will cost US$45 billion to put into operation, and their production will increase dramatically in the next two years. Eastern Australia’s gas-producing areas are affected by domestic energy supply constraints, and production is far below capacity, so export growth is not significant.

With the deepening of China’s supply-side reform of electrolytic aluminium and the remarkable increase of alumina production capacity abroad, the era of high-profit alumina industry is expected to end without emerging countries replacing the decline in aluminium demand caused by China’s economic slowdown.

With the production process of alumina unchanged for decades, only the comprehensive utilization of red mud, known as a worldwide problem, is expected to carry the banner of the next profit outlet.

A Brief Introduction to Red Mud

Each ton of alumina produced about 1.5 tons of red mud, particle diameter 0.088-0.25 mm, specific gravity 2.7-2.9, bulk density 0.8-1.0, melting point 1200-1250 C. The composition of red mud is shown in the table below.

At present, Bayer process is widely used in the production of alumina in China. The red mud of Bayer process is characterized by high content of iron, aluminium and alkali.

Typical Cases of Red Mud Comprehensive Utilization in Alumina Enterprises

1. China Aluminum Shandong Branch: The available data are that the comprehensive utilization rate of red mud is 25% by 2016, and the total consumption of red mud is 12 million, which is the highest utilization rate of alumina enterprises in China at present. Henan Province Aluminum Industry Transition Development Action Plan (2018-2020) clearly put forward that the comprehensive utilization rate of red mud will reach 10% by 2020. There will be no harm if there is no contrast. The comprehensive utilization rate of red mud in China is too low. The main uses of red mud are to prepare new desulfurizer technology for coal combustion, high grade cement, highway roadbed, brick making and water purifying agent.

2. Weiqiao Group: In 2018, 20,000 tons of red mud were used on the 5.3 km Subgrade of Binzhou section of Jiqing Expressway. It is estimated that 200,000 red mud can be consumed per kilometer of highway, 60,000 tons of red mud can be consumed on Provincial Highway and 20,000 tons of red mud can be consumed on Municipal road. For countries with huge mileage of highway in China, the future market prospects are broad.

3. Typical Cases of Comprehensive Utilization of Red Mud by Social Forces

On December 31, 2018, Shandong Satellite Television broadcasted a news about the large-scale production of permeable bricks (70,000 tons of red mud per year) by Zibo Tianzhirun Ecological Technology Co., Ltd. The company’s red mud permeable brick project red mud blending rate as high as 90%, successfully selected in 2018 Shandong Province, ten innovative achievements of circular economy. The owner of the company invested more than 30 million yuan and finally gambled on the only two houses. Fortunately, the company succeeded. It is a worldwide problem to know.

It is not only reminiscent that Inner Mongolia enterprises have spent tens of billions of dollars to break through the difficulty of producing alumina from fly ash, but there has been no breakthrough so far.

IV. Suggestions on Comprehensive Utilization of Red Mud

At present, red mud is used to produce cement, roadbed and permeable bricks, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages. The production technology of cement is mature, but there are cement factories nearby and the consumption of roadbed is large. However, the future demand for highways in economically developed areas is limited. The production of permeable bricks can be popularized throughout the country. The disadvantage is that the sales radius is less than 800 kilometers.

Generally speaking, the comprehensive utilization rate of red mud in China is very low. Although the utilization rate of red mud in China is not worse than that in other countries, we can not compare with foreign countries in the future. The era of self-surpassing in China’s alumina industry has arrived. We have seized the profit outlet of red mud comprehensive utilization and will reshape the status of enterprises in the alumina industry.

Price Trend

According to the price monitoring of business associations, as of January 10, the average price of methanol in domestic market was 2288 yuan/ton. The overall market area was adjusted, and the price fell 33.70% compared with the same period last year.

II. Market Analysis

Products: China’s methanol market continued to rise. Trading in Northwest China is good and the market is strong. Goods around Bohai Sea and Central China are still good and rising steadily. Trading in Huaihai has improved with a slight increase. Futures are tidied up, and the port market has risen accordingly. Enterprises in Northwest China are still able to deliver goods. Some enterprises have stopped selling, and some of them have delivered more than planned. The mentality of manufacturers is firm. The demand for inventory and replenishment in some parts of the Mainland, together with the recent trend of futures, supports the mindset of the traders, and the overall turnover of the market is stable and the atmosphere is acceptable. On the port side, futures opened high, spot quotation was firm, buying cautiously, negotiation was general, and overall spot volume was flat.

Industry chain: formaldehyde: the weather turned cold, downstream slabs started to decline, the demand for formaldehyde was light; raw material methanol rebounded recently, cost support is still acceptable, Shandong formaldehyde finishing wait-and-see trend. Now Linyi is around 1050-1060 yuan/ton, Zibo and its surrounding areas around 1200-1300 yuan/ton. Acetic acid: The domestic glacial acetic acid market has fallen sharply. The downstream acetate, chloroacetic acid and vinyl acetate are not good, and the intention of pre-season stock is general. The local storage pressure of acetic acid enterprises is slightly obvious, and considering the Spring Festival holidays, the enterprises have a higher intention to arrange goods within a week, so the local real unit price is lower in a day. However, the recent performance of methanol raw material, acetic acid profits continue to compress, so acetic acid is expected to continue downward space is limited. Dimethyl ether: The market supply is still tight, the overall inventory of enterprises is controllable, the short-term mentality is still strong, and the short-term domestic mainstream price trend of dimethyl ether is still bullish.

3. Future Market Forecast

Business Cooperatives Viewpoint: On the positive side, the raw material side: although natural gas in the northern heating season has not been expected to be tense in recent years, the seasonal supply and demand situation from coal, natural gas and other energy sources still has some support; Freight: Freight has been rising continuously in some areas in recent years, coupled with rain and snow weather in some parts of the country, transportation constraints, transportation costs in some areas have increased; Inventory: by the holiday bureau. Due to the tight influence of shipping closure and storage capacity, the overall unloading speed is slower, the inventory of East China Port is reduced, and the arrival of ship cargo in Ningbo area is delayed due to the influence of earlier closure, and the saleable volume is greatly reduced. On the short side, the external market: the recent external market negotiations are still weak and prices remain low, especially in Europe, where prices continue to decline slightly, and the pace of delivery in Iran needs to be paid attention to; demand: the current domestic environmental protection constraints, coupled with the traditional off-season in winter, the downstream industry still shows poor start, the digestion of methanol at the raw material end is normal; supply: recent Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Shanxi Parking and load reduction devices in other places are mostly restored. The supply of methanol resources in some areas has been enlarged, and the supply of methanol in the main production areas has shown an increasing trend. Methanol analysts from business associations predict that crude oil is on a good trend in the near future, and the domestic methanol market is on the strong side in the short term. Later, we still need to pay attention to domestic methanol plant restart, downstream delivery, port inventory, freight situation and futures trend, and suggest cautious operation.

Recently, Bangladesh Export Promotion Bureau released the latest statistics. From July to November 2018, the export volume of plastic products was 487,000 US dollars, an increase of 30% over the same period last year. It exports plastic products to 23 countries, including Britain, Germany, France, Poland, Spain and Canada, including household materials, automobiles, medical equipment and toys.

Bangladesh has about 5,000 plastic factories, and its plastic products market is 20 billion Taka.

The Rare Earth Index (REI) was 346 points on Jan. 8, unchanged from yesterday, down 65.40% from its cyclical peak of 1000 points (2011-12-06) and 27.68% from its lowest point of 271 on September 13, 2015. (Note: Period refers to 2011-12-01 to date).

The average price of neodymium, dysprosium and praseodymium in rare earth metals is 399.5 million yuan/ton, 1.655 million yuan/ton and 660,000 yuan/ton respectively. The average price of praseodymium and neodymium oxide in rare earth oxides is 315,500 yuan/ton; dysprosium oxide is 1.21 million yuan/ton; praseodymium oxide is 397,500 yuan/ton; and neodymium oxide is 313,000 yuan/ton. The price of praseodymium and neodymium alloys in rare earth alloys is 405,500 yuan per ton, and the average price of dysprosium and iron alloys is 1.22 million yuan per ton.

Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has comprehensively carried out special supervision work on the reorganization of the rare earth industry, which has led to the cold trade in the large domestic rare earth market and the low prices of some commodities in the rare earth market, mainly concentrated in neodymium oxide and neodymium oxide. The price fluctuation of rare earth market is related to environmental protection supervision in the whole country. Rare earth production has its particularity, especially the radiation hazard of some products, which makes environmental protection supervision stricter. Under stringent environmental protection, rare earth separation enterprises in many provinces have stopped production, resulting in a decline in the market of rare earth oxides, making the price of rare earth products firm. Especially for some mainstream rare earth oxides, the supply is tight, and the price trend of some commodities in the rare earth market is stable. However, due to the general situation of production and marketing of some products, the price trend of Pd-Nd oxide products has increased slightly due to the favorable support given by the national policy to the market. In the near future, large enterprise groups will have limited production, rare earth market has improved, but major manufacturers are cautious about the pricing of products. In addition, the recent import of rare earth oxides has been blocked, and the port of Yunnan has banned the import of Myanmar mines, resulting in a decline in import volume, which has brought some favorable support to the rare earth market. However, due to the limited volume, the prices of some rare earth products have declined, but most of the products have temporarily stabilized.

Eight inspecting groups composed of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Natural Resources and other ministries went to various places and launched special inspecting actions against eight provinces and regions of Inner Mongolia, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Fujian, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi and Sichuan, which are the main producing areas of rare earths. Prior to this, six departments of Jiangxi Province, a major producer of rare earth, jointly issued a special action document on cracking down on rare earth blacks, and conducted special supervision from September 2018 to January 2019. Due to the increasingly obvious regulatory effect, the supply of raw ore resources in the upstream of the rare earth industry has shrunk, and the trading market of the rare earth industry has been cold.

Rare earth analysts of business associations expect that the domestic environmental stringent inspection will not decrease in the near future, and the domestic reorganization of the order of the inhalation industry will have a positive impact on the rare earth industry. However, the import and export of rare earth industry will be limited in the near future. In addition, the recent cold turnover of the rare earth industry, the price trend of the rare earth market is expected to decline steadily.