At present, the prices of various raw material products in the world are still in the rising stage, coupled with the shortage of raw materials such as titanium ore and rutile, it is expected that their prices will remain high in the future, and it is more likely that they will continue to rise slowly. Recently, the price of magnesium ingot has dropped slightly, but it has not fallen below the profit and loss point of semi-process enterprises. Affected by this, domestic semi-process titanium sponge enterprises are still in a state of shutdown, and the market supply is still insufficient. Recently, some domestic semi-process titanium sponge enterprises have gradually completed the transformation to the whole process, the effective production capacity will gradually increase in the later stage, and the shortage of sponge titanium supply will gradually improve. The performance of the titanium market is basically stable. After some companies have consumed the low-priced raw materials in the early stage, the price of titanium materials may increase slightly.
Recently, the price of magnesium ingots has declined. Although it is still significantly higher than the average price in previous years, semi-process titanium sponge enterprises have finally seen the light. If the price of magnesium ingots can continue to fall, semi-process titanium sponge enterprises are expected to achieve breakeven and gradually resume production. For full-process titanium sponge enterprises, although the fall in the price of magnesium ingots has little impact on them, it can also reduce their production costs. Therefore, whether the price of magnesium ingots can fall back to near the break-even point of semi-process titanium sponge enterprises in the short term will have a great impact on the future market situation of titanium sponge.
According to preliminary statistics from relevant industry associations, in the first quarter, my country's titanium sponge output was 32,448.8 tons, slightly lower than the same period last year. Among them, the total output of full-process titanium sponge enterprises was 26,630.8 tons, which was an increase over the same period last year; while the output of semi-process titanium sponge enterprises was 5,818 tons, a big drop. Affected by the high prices of raw materials such as magnesium ingots, in the first quarter, the operating rate of domestic semi-process titanium sponge enterprises was only 49% of the same period last year, and 3 semi-process titanium sponge enterprises were in a state of complete shutdown.
Since the price of magnesium ingots soared last year, some domestic semi-process titanium sponge enterprises have been in a state of shutdown. Due to the excessive increase in the price of magnesium ingots and the duration of this time, some semi-process titanium sponge enterprises are undergoing full-process industrial transformation. In the situation where titanium sponge enterprises are absolutely dominant, the proportion of production capacity of semi-process titanium sponge enterprises will drop to about 17% of the total domestic sponge titanium production capacity.
From the perspective of the medium and long-term development of the titanium industry, my country's titanium sponge industry is in a period of obvious expansion. With large private enterprises and listed companies as the main investment bodies, large-scale new sponge titanium projects are developing rapidly. The overall investment amount, single project scale, and construction speed are unprecedented. my country's titanium industry will have a huge new production capacity in the next two years. market. While these new production capacities are put into production rapidly, the demand for downstream titanium and titanium alloy products will lag significantly. At that time, the sponge titanium market may enter a new round of price competition. In this process, small titanium sponge enterprises with insufficient financial strength will be greatly impacted, and the industry may usher in a new round of reshuffle.
