Trends in China’s Chromite Demand

China is poor in chromite resources and breakthroughs seem unlikely in the near future in chromite prospecting. The present production status of some major mines is as follows. After extension, the Luobusa Mine will have a mining scale of 100,000 tons; the annual production of merchantable ores of the Sartokay Mine will be reduced to about 20,000 tons; Inner Mongolia can produce 2,000~3,000 tons of concentrates; the annual output of the Dadaoerji Mine is about 20,000 tons; and the mines in Qinghai have unstable production. Therefore, it is predicted that the output of merchantable ores will be no more than 150,000 tons by 2010.

China has a relatively high production capacity of ferrochrome at present, 700,000~800,000 tons annually, which can meet the demands for both domestic (420,000 tons) and foreign (300,000 tons) markets by 2000. The key problem is the shortage of chromite.

There are plenty of chromite resources in the world and the available reserves can satisfy the demand of the whole world for hundreds of years. However, the chromite resources are evenly distributed to a large extent. South Africa holds 81.1% of the total reserves and 48.7% of the total production of the world and Kazakhstan occupies 8.65% of the total reserves and 11.6% of the total output. Other major countries include India, Turkey, Finland, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Albania, Russia and Iran. Therefore, it is imperative to make full use of not only domestic but also foreign chromite resources in many years to come.

To utilize foreign resources, cooperative exploration and exploitation can be carried out with countries enriched in chromite resources to set up some stable supply bases in addition to purchasing chromite from international markets.

The Chinese productive capacity of ferrochrome is relatively high, so that it can satisfy not only domestic but also export demands. In 1996, 130,000 tons of ferrochrome and 31,000 tons of Si-Cr alloy were exported to earn US $ 118.574 million and 25.26 million respectively. The total earned foreign exchanges are US $ 143,834,000, showing a significant economic benefit.

With increasing production and consumption of stainless steel, the recovery of waste chromite products should be dealt with timely. According to relevant reports, in the US a considerable amount of chromite was recovered from purchased stainless steel wastes in 1995, amounting to 22% of its demand. China should take measures to strengthen the recovery of chromite wastes so as to alleviate the shortage of chromite resources.

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