HBIS Group’s Chenggang will conduct maintenance on one of its four blast furnaces (BFs) from Thursday February 20, which will reduce around 300 tonnes per month of vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) output, market sources told Fastmarkets.
The company’s 2,500-cubic-meter BF is scheduled for maintenance till the end of May, which will cut approximately 1,000 tonnes of V2O5 output in total, a source familiar with the issue told Fastmarkets.
The company – with a 1,260-cubic-meter BF and three 2,500-cubic-meter BFs – produces around 1,300 tpm of V2O5 under normal operations, Fastmarkets understands.
“V2O5 output in February will be reduced to around 1,000 tonnes due to the maintenance, but from March the output could reach around 1,100-1,200 tonnes because we will buy some vanadium slags from other places,” a source from the company said.
“V2O5 output in February will be reduced to around 1,000 tonnes due to the maintenance, but from March the output could reach around 1,100-1,200 tonnes because we will buy some vanadium slags from other places,” a source from the company said.
Although the news should, in theory, support the country’s V2O5 price, the price itself, however, showed signs of weakening amid abundant supply while buying interest wanes.
Fastmarkets’ assessment for vanadium pentoxide, 98% V2O5 min, fob China was at $6.25-6.35 per lb on Thursday February 20, down from $6.25-6.40 per lb the previous week.
Chenggang – headquartered in northern China’s Chengde city – is one of China’s major vanadium products suppliers and boasts a capacity of 20,000 tonnes per year of vanadium products, 8 million tpy of steel products and 60,000 tpy of titanium concentrates respectively, according to information from the company’s official website.
This maintenance at Chenggang follows Pangang Group, China’s top vanadium producer, which conducted maintenance on one of its three BFs in late 2019, reducing around 1,000 tonnes of V2O5 at that time.
Pangang completed the maintenance after the extended Chinese New Year holiday (January 24-February 2) and is now maintaining normal operations for vanadium products, according to company sources.
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