GuangzhouChina Dec. 25, 2010-On November 24, 2010, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued "Access Requirement for Hydrogen Fluorine Industry" (Verdict Draft) that is confirmed firstly by the official that fluorine the chemical industry plan is a sub-plan in the Twelfth Five Years Plan. The verdict collecting was finished in November 30th, 2010. Verdict Draft is interpreted in order to effectuate transformation and upgrading of fluorine industry. Chinese government will integrate fluorine resource mandatorily.
On the view of the industry distribution, Verdict Draft encourages hydrogen fluorine factory to move into Industry Park and prohibits new enterprises from producing hydrogen fluorine end products. As for production scale, Verdict Draft specifies that the capacity of newly-built enterprises' hydrogen fluorine production line should be more than 50,000 t/a, and the capacity of new production line for existing enterprises should be more than 20,000 t/a. There are also specific provisions on product quality, environment protection and energy conservation listed on Verdict Draft.
China has about one half of fluorite resource in the world, but there is just 10% of fluorite minable reserve. On the other hand, the output of fluorite in China covers more than 50% the total output in the world, which is far more than the domestic demand and its price is much lower. Though China government has set the export quotas for fluorite, the export volume of fluorite is still large. And the export volume of many primary fluorine products such as hydrogen fluorine, primary fluorine resin, also grows quickly. Meanwhile, most high-end fluorine products in China are still depending on import. Now, the status of China's fluorine industry is that there is intense competence and excess production capacity in primary products and low-end products, but the production technology is weak in the production of high-end products, most of which is relying on export.
With the industry-control polices introduced gradually, it can be estimated that China will reduce the export of fluorite and hydrogen fluorine by a large margin in the future to decrease the resource loss, and use government regulation to carry out the integration with fluorite resource and some large enterprises.
Source: CCM International