Recently, the magnesium industry has received heavyweight news, with the official unveiling and construction of the Shaanxi Province Magnesium based New Materials Pilot Plant. It is reported that this is China‘s first annual production line of high-quality magnesium with an annual output of thousands of tons, and its location is also the world‘s largest metal magnesium production area in Fugu County, Yulin, Shaanxi.
In recent years, the technology research and development of China’s local magnesium industry has been continuously accelerating. The cutting-edge technology team represented by Xi‘an Jiaotong University School of Materials Science and Technology has made significant breakthroughs, increasing the compliance rate of high-quality magnesium from 1% to over 90%, injecting strong impetus into the large-scale development of the magnesium industry.
From the perspective of application markets, magnesium is indispensable in multiple important industries such as healthcare and energy storage. Taking the development of magnesium based new material pilot bases as an opportunity, high-quality magnesium in China will account for over 80% of the original magnesium in the future, directly driving the overall upgrading of China’s magnesium industry chain, and the magnesium industry chain will also upgrade, accelerate, and take off comprehensively!
China is a leading market in the global magnesium industry
In the surface reserves of the Earth‘s crust, magnesium ranks 8th in terms of reserves. Compared to many single form metals, magnesium exists in a combined state in nature, mainly distributed in resources such as dolomite mines, salt lakes, and seawater. From the distribution of reserves, China has the highest magnesium reserves in the world, with a total of 4 billion tons of proven dolomite resources. At the same time, in terms of salt lake resources, China alone has a magnesium salt reserve of 4.75 billion tons in 33 salt lakes in the Qaidam Basin of Qinghai Province, mostly high-purity magnesium chloride. Due to its indispensable role in industrial production, magnesium has been extensively applied and developed in various fields.
Among them, magnesium alloy, as a light metal material, has the characteristics of good damping and shock absorption, high strength, and strong radiation resistance, and is widely used in strategic emerging industries such as aerospace, automotive, energy conservation, and communication. With sustainable development becoming a global consensus, magnesium is seen as the future green material.
Relying on abundant reserves of magnesium resources, China’‘s magnesium industry has developed at the forefront of the world. Especially since the beginning of the 21st century, China‘s magnesium smelting technology has continuously made significant breakthroughs, especially the application and promotion of emerging technologies such as vertical tank technology, which has led to a qualitative improvement in energy consumption and output in the magnesium industry, laying the foundation for further application and development of magnesium. However, considering new policy requirements such as environmental protection and low-carbon, the mechanization and automation level of China’s magnesium industry still needs to be improved.
From the perspective of industrial structure, Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces, which have natural advantages in magnesium resource reserves, are the advantageous core production areas of China‘s magnesium industry, accounting for 84% of the national magnesium ingot production. Especially in the Yulin area of Shaanxi Province, where the magnesium based new material pilot plant is located, its raw magnesium production accounts for over 60% of China’s total, making it the main raw magnesium production area. Relying on its core advantages, Shaanxi Province has also begun to focus on building a magnesium aluminum alloy deep processing industry chain in 2023, and will build a billion dollar magnesium aluminum industry cluster during the 14th Five Year Plan period.
In terms of market competition, there is currently a huge production gap between the top enterprises in China‘s magnesium industry and small and medium-sized enterprises. Among the top enterprises, CR3 accounts for 21.58%, and there are 13 top original magnesium smelters with a production capacity of over 30000 tons
