China's Tungsten Industry Four Major Barriers to Entry

Tungsten is a rare high melting point metal in nature with a melting point of up to 3,410 ° C. It has high density, high hardness, high wear resistance, high electrical conductivity and high temperature strength. According to the degree of smelting and processing, tungsten products mainly include ammonium paratungstate (APT), tungsten oxide, tungsten powder, tungsten carbide powder, tungsten carbide and other products. Among them, tungsten carbide has high hardness and excellent wear resistance. It is widely used in the fields of machining, mining, automobile manufacturing, oil drilling, electronic information, etc., and is known as "industrial teeth".

Worldwide, tungsten, as an important non-renewable scarce resource, has been listed as an important strategic metal by major countries.

The application of cemented carbide depends on its specific properties, mainly due to the size of the tungsten carbide powder (grain size) and the binder content. In the case where the binder phase content of the cemented carbide is constant, the finer the tungsten carbide grain is, the higher the hardness of the cemented carbide is, especially when the grain size of the tungsten carbide powder is less than 0.5 μm, the hardness of the cemented carbide The flexural strength will be greatly improved; the coarser the tungsten carbide grains, the higher the fracture toughness of the cemented carbide, especially when the grain size of the tungsten carbide powder is higher than 6.0 μm, the cemented carbide will have good fracture toughness. , resistance to thermal fatigue and impact toughness.

After decades of development, the competition in China's tungsten products industry has gradually matured and the market competition is relatively full. However, the current industrial concentration is still low, and the situation of “multiple, scattered and small” of tungsten products enterprises still exists. In terms of production capacity and product structure, there are many low-end products and low-end products. The pattern of exporting low-value-added primary and intermediate tungsten smelting products remains unchanged, especially for tungsten deep processing products and foreign large-scale tungsten products. There is still a certain gap, high-performance, high-precision high-grade cemented carbide still needs to be imported from abroad.

The main obstacles to entering the tungsten industry:

One is the barrier to entry. The access conditions for the tungsten products industry are relatively strict. The “Tungsten Industry Access Conditions” issued by the National Development and Reform Commission and the “Tungsten Industry Standard Conditions” issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the establishment and layout of production enterprises, production scale, resource recycling and utilization. Strict requirements have been put forward in terms of energy consumption, environmental protection, product quality, safe production and occupational disease prevention, supervision and management; the Ministry of Commerce has also established a very strict standard access system for the qualification of tungsten export suppliers, which is not satisfied. Enterprises with the above conditions will not be able to enter the tungsten products industry or engage in the direct export business of tungsten products.

The second is product quality barriers. As downstream customers pay attention to the production of raw materials, product quality has become one of the main barriers to entry into the industry. Major manufacturers of high-end hard alloys at home and abroad have clear requirements for their main raw materials, ultra-fine and ultra-thick tungsten carbide. For example, ultra-fine tungsten carbide powders are required to have small particle size, high purity and narrow particle size distribution. Some companies that fail to meet the relevant quality requirements will gradually be eliminated. In addition, downstream customers pay special attention to the stability of product quality, and cannot continue to provide existing or new-enterprise enterprises with stable quality products, and it is difficult to survive and develop in the market for a long time.

The third is technical barriers. With the improvement of China's tungsten technology level, tungsten products are developing to high performance, high precision and high added value. This trend puts forward higher technical requirements for enterprises entering the tungsten products industry. For example, the gradual application of nanomaterials, nanostructure coatings, coating coating technologies, etc. in cemented carbide tools and tools, puts forward higher technology for the powder morphology, chemical purity, and powder particle size of the main raw material tungsten carbide. Standards and requirements. New companies entering the industry need to constantly overcome technical barriers.

The fourth is the talent barrier. The tungsten products industry has higher requirements for professionals in all aspects. In the production process, the production personnel are required to precisely control the key control parameters in each process flow, and in the inspection process, the test personnel need to be proficient in the use of professional measuring instruments such as grating spectrograph, laser particle size analyzer and specific surface area analyzer. Therefore, the company is required to have a variety of professionals with many years of industry experience. The demand for talents in the industry is not only the requirement of professional knowledge, but also requires a certain amount of experience. At present, there are fewer professionals in the domestic tungsten product industry, and the period of training talents is long. Finding professional talents has become one of the difficulties faced by newcomers.