Development prospects |

      (This article was originally published in the second issue of "Haisheng Window" in 2022, by Zhang Minghua from Haisheng Factory)

1、 Tungsten is an important strategic scarce resource in China, and it is a high melting point rare metal or refractory rare metal in the fields of metallurgy and metal materials. Tungsten and its alloys are one of the extremely important functional materials in modern industrial, national defense, and high-tech applications, widely used in aerospace, atomic energy, shipbuilding, automotive industry, electrical industry, electronic industry, chemical industry, and many other fields. In particular, tungsten containing superalloys are mainly used in components of gas turbines, rockets, missiles and nuclear reactors, and high proportion tungsten based alloys are used in armour piercing warheads of anti tank and anti submarine. The reserves and total exports of tungsten resources rank first in the world. Currently, over 80% of the tungsten industry consumption in the world comes from China, which is a major producer of tungsten.

The upstream of tungsten industry is dominated by exploration, mining and beneficiation of black-and-white tungsten ores, the midstream is dominated by smelting of "tungsten concentrate - ammonium paratungstate (APT) - tungsten powder - tungsten carbide powder", and the downstream includes processing of tungsten materials, tungsten wires, hard alloys and other materials. From the perspective of the value chain, China's tungsten industry presents a characteristic of "high at both ends and low in the middle": the profit level of upstream tungsten mining and selection, as well as downstream high-end hard alloys (especially high-precision and high-performance cutting tools), is high, while the profit margin level of smelting, powder making, medium and low grade hard alloys, tungsten steel and tungsten materials is low.

Our Haisheng Tungsten Industry has a complete tungsten industry chain, which creates favorable conditions for the company's sustained profitability and reduces profit fluctuations, enhancing the company's risk resistance ability. Among enterprises similar to ours, Zhangyuan Tungsten and Xianglu Tungsten are A-share listed private enterprises in China that mainly produce and operate tungsten products.

2、 Xiamen Tungsten has a production capacity of 25000 tons of tungsten powder in the past 21 years. In 2022, Xiamen Tungsten's sales of hard alloy and cutting tool products have declined, but photovoltaic tungsten wires have grown.

Zhangyuan Tungsten Industry has a production capacity of 8000 tons of tungsten powder and 6000 tons of tungsten carbide in 2021, and there are also new intelligent manufacturing projects for tungsten powder under construction. It is expected to increase the production capacity of 7000 tons of tungsten powder and 9600 tons of tungsten carbide powder.

Xianglu Tungsten Industry completed the relocation of Dayu Longxintai from the city to the park in 2021, and also greatly expanded the production capacity of tungsten powder and tungsten carbide powder this year, accelerating the construction of the 9000 ton APT project. In 2021, 5600 tons of tungsten carbide were sold throughout the year.

The production capacity of tungsten products in the main tungsten industry is increasing this year. We, Haisheng, have also completed most of the technological renovations this year, including the intelligent manufacturing transformation of 8 automated fifteen tube reduction furnaces, the addition of one rotary reduction furnace, two airflow breakers, and two semi-automatic carbon tube furnaces, all of which greatly improve the production capacity of tungsten powder and tungsten carbide. In the year of technological transformation, while maintaining survival production, it is expected that the production of tungsten carbide powder this year will remain the same as last year. Compared with enterprises with complete industrial chains in the same industry, Haisheng's market share is still low, and if it does not make progress, it will be squeezed by the market Lebensraum.

3、 2022 is coming to an end soon, and there are many shortcomings in the year that require a clearer understanding and gradual improvement.

1) The workshop is an old factory building, which is difficult to renovate and increases the difficulty of management. During the technical renovation process, the overall arrangement of equipment in the venue may be limited even after multiple relocations and space adjustments. The narrow location of the workshop warehouse leads to disorderly placement of materials, and materials and products are piled up everywhere during the process.

2) Workshop layout, increasing difficulties in renovation. The layout of the tungsten carbide workshop was affected by the relocation of tungsten oxide, and the tungsten oxide workshop has not yet been relocated. As a result, the tungsten carbide production has not been completed, and it is completely divided into three areas. Carbon distribution, crushing and transportation are time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the logistics department is smooth.

3) Changes in product structure and incomplete equipment matching. At present, the development of the industry is similar to the bipolar development trend, which involves the application of ultrafine tungsten carbide powder and ultra coarse tungsten carbide powder and their prepared hard alloys. Our current supporting rotary furnace for tungsten powder cannot reach high temperature due to material issues in the furnace tubes, which affects production and limits the production capacity of fine particles. The molybdenum wire furnace for tungsten carbide is also equipped with outdated equipment with high failure rates, sometimes replaced by carbon tube furnaces, resulting in inconsistent quality.

4) There are weaknesses in the production process of the factory, and the product process has not been improved by leaps and bounds. In terms of crystal shape, crystal appearance, particle size distribution and other aspects, it is necessary to have more professional research spirit to overcome difficulties. Until now, the development of tungsten product technology has focused on the production of details.

Medium particle tungsten powder, the tungsten powder produced by our factory has agglomeration, and there are more ultrafine particles.

Compared to medium particle tungsten powder, this batch of tungsten powder from a certain tungsten industry has dispersed and uniform particles, with fewer fine particles.

5) The production of tungsten waste involves a significant amount of defective materials and material waste throughout the entire production process. In terms of protection and dust removal during the unloading and screening processes, many require redesign.

Discovering shortcomings is to better improve oneself and overcome difficulties.

4、 As 2022 approaches the end of the year, the control of the epidemic will be relaxed. In the face of future market shocks, it is even more important to cultivate internal skills to cope with the company's listing and development. Tungsten, as the "teeth of industry", is in increasing demand for tungsten products in the face of fierce competition due to the opening up of the epidemic and the recovery of the manufacturing industry.

1) Improve skill training for intelligent automation equipment. Optimize the hydrogen purification system, save labor costs, calculate the failure time of each equipment, and improve the accuracy and accuracy of equipment automation operation,

2) Improve the process system and internal control standards. Standardize and standardize production through a system. Reduce product fluctuations caused by subjective human factors.

3) Improve the layout of the workshop structure, ensure smooth logistics, and reduce physical labor.

4) This year, the complaint rate has significantly decreased and the product qualification rate has significantly increased, but attention should be paid to the production details. Especially now, the market is developing towards both ultrafine and ultra coarse powders. For ultrafine powders, we need to have special requirements for alloy grading wheels, optimize the entire nitrogen gas flow grinding and crushing system, search for optimal processes, reduce the adverse effects of production equipment on the micro crystal morphology of the powder, improve the quality of ultrafine and fine particle tungsten carbide products, and make them more refined and uniform.

细颗粒粉末由此分布转变为下图分布

To achieve a qualitative breakthrough in fine and ultrafine tungsten carbide particles and achieve stable mass production.

Pessimistic people are right, optimistic people move forward, discover problems with solutions, don't worry, find problems with no way to worry is useless, optimistic and positive face.