Fastmarkets highlights six key things we learned from the 2018 Chinese Minor Metals Forum that took place in in Kunming, China, on November 27-28.
Bearish fundamentals dominate domestic gallium market Environmental inspections that resulted in cuts to Chinese alumina production in the first half of this year tightened supply of gallium and caused gallium prices to rise, Xiong Tian, strategic sourcing manager at Neo Performance Materials, said. Around 90% of gallium is produced as by-product of alumina production. Domestic alumina production in the first six months of 2018 was 33.34 million tonnes, down from 37.22 million tonnes a year earlier, according to the China National Bureau of Statistics. But falling capacity in the light emitting diode (LED) industry - the key end-use sector for gallium, accounting for 70-80% of total domestic consumption - has...