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The EU urgently must classify a substance used to line furnaces and kilns for making cement, glass and metal as a crucial uncooked materials or provides will grow to be hostage to China, the world’s greatest producer of high-end industrial ceramics has warned.
Stefan Borgas, chief government of London-listed RHI Magnesita, instructed the Monetary Instances that whereas magnesite is important to fundamental chemical processes underlying Europe’s industrial base, its absence from an inventory of strategically essential supplies has disincentivised homegrown manufacturing.
Magnesite is used to make refractories, supplies that enable furnaces to deal with extraordinarily excessive temperatures above 1,200C. Europe imports most of its magnesite from China, which controls two-thirds of world manufacturing.
“Now we have sufficient magnesite in Europe that we might safe provide to the European heavy industries,” Borgas stated, including that EU crucial supplies designation helps to spice up funding within the mining and processing of lithium, nickel and different metals the place China additionally dominates provide.
“For certain it offers a lift to the European manufacturing of those supplies,” Borgas stated. “Now we have pure assets [but] Europe has uncared for its mining capabilities during the last 50 years.”
The decision by Vienna-headquartered RHI Magnesita is an indication of how far China’s international surge in industrial exports in response to faltering home demand is extending past metal and different broadly used metals to lesser identified however equally crucial supplies.
The corporate, which has a listed subsidiary in India and a market worth of about £1.5bn, is battling falling costs for refractories as Chinese language producers flip to exports to soak up extra capability. Factories in India are additionally investing in new refractory manufacturing because the nation pursues its steelmaking ambitions.
In an effort to spice up its provides of the commodities required to make clear applied sciences resembling batteries and wind generators, the EU has listed 16 merchandise together with nickel, lithium and cobalt as “strategic” as a part of a Critical Raw Materials Act that units targets for his or her home extraction, processing and recycling.
Borgas argued that magnesite ought to be added to this record as a result of it additionally underpins the processing and recycling of greater than half of those “strategic” minerals.
He stated that together with it on the record would additionally assist corporations cluster collectively to put money into decarbonising high-emitting processes. The manufacturing of 1 tonne of magnesia from magnesite emitted about 1.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide, Borgas stated.
“Being on the strategic uncooked materials record helps to assist funding in completely new applied sciences. [This is] uncharted territory, which for any single firm can be very dangerous. However as a cluster, this might grow to be very attention-grabbing.”
The worldwide provide of refractories is operating at about 40 per cent above demand however the provide chains for uncooked supplies resembling magnesite have gotten precarious, in accordance with RHI Magnesita.
“For each constructing materials for contemporary society . . . you want refractories,” Borgas stated. “You want this ceramic insulation layer contained in the furnace with a view to shield the crops and the individuals from this scorching materials.
“The Chinese language have invested into this based mostly on their assets and — very reliably, truly — provide the world . . . Europe and each different continent ought to take care that they no less than use what they’ve,” he stated.
The EU ought to replace the crucial uncooked supplies record by Might 24 2027, in accordance with the act. Any materials have to be assessed earlier than it may be added, an EU official stated.
