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| HOME >> Topics List >> February, 2008 >> 29 (Fri) |
| Explosive Accidents Successively Occur At Ferro-Alloy Plants / S.Africa, Causing Anxiety For Supplies |
| = In Addition To Crisis Of Electricity Supply, Factors To Make Unstable Melting Operation Also Disgorge |
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It has already passed more than 30 years since the ferro-alloy industry of South Africa has started out on a substantial scale as the suppliers of ferro-alloys to the world market but the stable supplies of ferro-alloys from South Africa have been now put on red signal. Eskom, national electric power corporation of South Africa, suddenly expressed in January of 2008 a plan to reduce electricity supply and, in addition, two accidents have successively occurred in February at two major producers of ferro-alloys for an awkwardness in the process of melting. Samancor Chrome has had on the 17th of February an accident in the course of producing IC-3 grade ( medium carbon ferro-chrome ) at the Ferrometals plant and declared on the 18th force majeure. One worker was killed by this accident and one electric furnace has suspended to operate. The stoppage to produce IC-3 grade is estimated to take 3 - 4 months. Also, the Cateridge plant of Assmang has had on the 24th of February an explosive accident occurred at No.6 electric furnace and No. 5 electric furnace, neighboring to No.6 furnace, has been driven to suspend its operation as a side issue of this accident. Some of the parties concerned has a view that No.5 electric furnace will be necessary to suspend its operation for one month and No.6 electric furnace will be required to have 6 months at the maximum to restore. Five workers were killed by this accident. Both companies had maintained stable operations on a very high level and this kind of accident was nearly nil in the past years.. Therefore, it is necessary for the parties concerned to ascertain whether these accidents are inevitable ones or not. However, during a period to clarify the reasons of accidents, the operations are suspended. Incidentally, owing to the cut of electricity supply by Eskom, the whole of the South African industries has been shaking at present but it seems to be nearly nothing to have a correlative relationship between these accidents and electricity problem. The reason is that the accident at Samancor Chrome has occurred in the process of granulating hot metal and does not relate with operation of electric furnace. Furthermore, in case of the explosive accident at Assmang, the Cateridge plant has been located in the place ( formerly Natal Province ), where is said to have less anxiety for supply of electric power. However, it is generally said that metallurgical engineers, foremen and normal workers have been working at ferro-alloy plants of South Africa but a degree of their employment has become more unstable than that in the past. Even the plants, which have been maintaining their production of ferro-alloys for a long period, have had more anxious factors for their operations in the recent years. In view of the fact that the public order in South Africa has been deteriorating year by year, many of well-experienced engineers have recently moved from South Africa to such country as Australia for the sake of a safety. The world industries of natural resources and metals have been progressing on a favorable tone and, accordingly, a mobility of workers has raised, resulting in a lower fixation of employees. Even in South Africa, high grade engineers qualified as plant manager are unable to keep a stability of their employment. Eskom announced in January of this year a plan to reduce the volumes of electric power to be supplied by them and, according to this plan, it is difficult to increase the volumes of electric power until 2013 with the cut of electricity supply by 10% in 2008. In the case to produce ferro-alloys, it is necessary to ensure a stable supply of electric power and, accordingly, an essentiality is to contract with Eskom on supply of electric power on the basis of the volumes reduced by 20%. The process to operate electric furnace has relied on computer control and this condition has aimed to avoid an intermittent supply of electric power. This sort of risk will emerge hereafter in production of ferro-alloys. Main ferro-alloys, being produced in South Africa at present, are ferro-chrome and ferro-manganese. According to the data released by ICDA ( The International Chrome Development Association ), the world output of ferro-chrome in 2007 came to 8,415,000 tons on material base, which increased by 20.7% compared with that in 2006 and consisted of <> high carbon material : 7,788,000 tons ( compared to 6,312,000 tons in 2006 ) and <> medium and low carbon materials : 627,000 tons ( compared with 659,000 tons in 2006 ). Among the world output in 2007 as mentioned above, Southern Africa produced 3,583,000 tons in total of ferro-chrome in 2007, including 200,000 tons estimated to have been produced in Zimbabwe, and the net quantity of ferro-chrome produced in South Africa for 2007 came to a little less than 3,400,000 tons. Therefore, South Africa has shared an extremely high rate of 40.4% in the world production of ferro-chrome as of 2007. South Africa increased their production of ferro-chrome in 2007 by 20% compared to that in 2006 but has a high possibility to be reduced electricity supply by 10 - 20% and, accordingly, it will be inevitable for South Africa to decrease their production of ferro-chrome in 2008 by 300,000 - 500,000 tons per annum in comparison with that in 2007. South Africa produced 873,000 tons of manganese ferro-alloys in 2007, which included part of estimation and consisted of <> BHP Billiton ( South African plant ) : 533,000 tons, <> Assmang : 240,000 tons ( sold 122,000 tons in the second half of 2007 ) and <> Transalloys : 100,000 tons ( estimated ). According to the data released by IMnI ( The International Manganese Institute ), the world output of manganese ferro-alloys in 2006 is estimated at 29,000,000 tons. Also, according to an estimation by Eramet, the world consumption of manganese ferro-alloys in 2007 increased by 7.3% from that in 2006, which was estimated to have an expansion of 6.4% from that in 2005. Therefore, the world output of manganese ferro-alloys in 2007 is supposed to have increased to a scale of more than 31,000,000 tons per annum. An importance in the world production of manganese ferro-alloys shared by South Africa is very low in comparison with that of ferro-chrome and South Africa shared only 2.8% of the world production of manganese ferro-alloys. However, the most quantities of ferro-alloys produced in South Africa are exported and, apart from China, the countries in Europe and the USA have regarded South Africa as the important source to supply ferro-alloys.. Therefore, an impact to be put by South Africa on the western market is not negligible, because a source to supply manganese ferro-alloys as a substitution for South Africa is unable to find out at present, excluding China. In view of a shortage of electric power, South African producers have planned to concentrate their production on high carbon ferro-manganese, which consumes less volume of electric power for the production, and to decrease their production of silico-manganese. The volume of electric power to be consumed for production of silico-manganese doubles compared with that for production of ferro-manganese and, therefore, the quantity of silico-manganese to be produced hereafter in South Africa is thought to decrease to a considerable extent. A margin to export high grade manganese ore from South Africa will be narrowed. Both decreases of ferro-chrome and manganese ferro-alloy to be produced in South Africa will certainly become the factors to stimulate prices of these ferro-alloys. Spot prices of ferro-chrome have already risen to a higher level than 200 US-Cents per lb. of Cr for high carbon material and a level of 400 US-Cents for low carbon material respectively. Also, spot prices of manganese ferro-alloys have risen to a level of US$3,000 per ton for medium carbon ferro-manganese and a level of US$2,300 - 2,500 per ton for Chinese silico-manganese. |
| last modified : Wed 05 Mar, 2008 [10:42] |
