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Overview of 1. Nickel Resources

Nickel is a ferromagnetic metal element with excellent properties such as corrosion resistance, high temperature resistance, oxidation resistance and good ductility. It is widely used in metallurgy, chemical industry, aerospace and other fields. It is an important raw material for the preparation of stainless steel, high temperature alloy, power battery and other materials, and belongs to the key strategic metal resources. The world's nickel resources are mainly distributed in Indonesia, Australia, Brazil and Russia, while China's nickel reserves account for less than 3%, which is a typical "less nickel" country.

With the development of social economy, nickel resources are playing an increasingly important role in strategic emerging industries such as new materials, new energy, low-carbon environmental protection, etc. Japan and the United States have successively listed nickel as key minerals. my country promulgated the "National Mineral Resources (2016-2020)" in 2016 to include nickel metal in the list of strategic minerals for the first time. my country is the world's largest consumer of nickel resources, but the output of nickel resources is not high. In 2020, the output will be 120000 tons, accounting for only 4.8 percent of the world's output. It mainly relies on imports from Indonesia and the Philippines, and its dependence on foreign countries is as high as 95%. Therefore, how to ensure the sustainable supply of nickel resources is very important to national security and economic development.

2. Nickel and Nickel Alloy Applications

Nickel and nickel alloy is a kind of important strategic material, which has excellent properties, such as extremely excellent corrosion resistance, thermal strength, excellent process performance, as well as special electromagnetics, memory and other functional properties.

Nickel alloys can be divided into high-temperature alloys, corrosion-resistant alloys, memory alloys, wear-resistant alloys and precision alloys according to their use. Nickel alloy has excellent corrosion resistance, high temperature strength, oxidation resistance, some special alloys also have memory, excellent electromagnetics and other special functions, so it is widely used in military aerospace, aerospace navigation, electrical and electronic, petrochemical, new energy and other industrial fields.

Related Report: China's Nickel Alloy Industry Market Supply and Demand Pattern and Investment Planning Recommendations for 2021-2026

3. nickel and nickel alloy industry chain

The nickel and nickel alloy industry chain includes four links: nickel and nickel alloy smelting, processing, equipment manufacturing and other applications. Participants include: nickel and nickel alloy smelting enterprises, nickel and nickel alloy processing enterprises, and manufacturers of production equipment in various links. And equipment manufacturing, metal products, chemical and other demand industries. According to the current division of labor mode of nickel and nickel alloy industry enterprises, the metal nickel and nickel alloy industry chain can be divided into the above stages into upper, middle and lower reaches.

4. nickel and nickel alloy production capacity

At present, the production enterprises of pure nickel products in China are mainly Baoti Group Co., Ltd., Chongqing Materials Research Institute, Baoji Haiji Titanium Nickel Co., Ltd., Qinhuangdao Nuclear Cheng Nickel Industry Co., Ltd., among which Baoti Group Co., Ltd. has the largest production capacity.

The main manufacturers of nickel-based corrosion-resistant and high-temperature alloys are Fushun Special Steel, Great Wall Special Steel, Shanghai Baosteel, etc. Baoti Group Co., Ltd. is in the stage of industrial development. Precision alloys are mainly produced by Beijing Beiye functional materials and Shaanxi precision alloys, Changzhou Zhongsteel precision and other enterprises. Baoti Group can produce a small number of nickel-based low expansion alloys such as 4J36, elastic alloy 3J68, soft magnetic alloy 1J50, etc. Titanium-nickel memory alloy is mainly produced by enterprises such as Beijing Research and Xi'an Saite.

5. development demand for nickel and nickel combined

1. Demand of chemical industry

Pure nickel is generally used in chemical equipment corrosion-resistant structural parts, precision instruments, electronic tubes and radio equipment parts and other fields, high-purity nickel N4 in electrolysis, electroplating and other industries have a large demand, mainly for wide plate. Ultra-pure nickel is used in batteries and other fields. The thickness of 0.5mm ~ 0.6mm pure nickel and N10276 cold rolled sheet in the plate heat exchanger manufacturing has a large demand. Iron-nickel-based corrosion-resistant alloy N08020, N08028 plate, etc. are widely used in the preparation of oil and gas transmission pipelines. N08825 and pipeline steel composite pipe has a large demand in the oil industry. Nickel-based corrosion resistant alloy N06600, N04400, N06625, N10276 excellent corrosion resistance, large market demand, a large number of imports in the past, and now gradually began to localization. In order to save costs, reduce welds and improve safety, this type of industry mainly requires wide medium and heavy plates with a thickness of more than 6mm, a width of more than 1800mm and a length of more than 5000mm.

2, electrical and electronic field needs.

Nickel alloy functional materials for electronic and electrical applications are an important aspect of nickel alloy applications, mainly used in home appliances, IT manufacturing, information products and electrical products manufacturing. For example, the demand for nickel alloy strips for color TV manufacturing is very large, and the localization is less than 10%, which provides opportunities for the development of nickel-based precision alloys. However, it requires high technical and equipment capabilities.

3. Demand in the field of new energy of nuclear power

Nickel-based superalloys have good high temperature resistance, corrosion resistance or a specific environmental adaptability. In 2018, a total of seven nuclear power units in China were officially put into commercial operation. Although the annual increase in the nuclear power industry has a large fluctuation, it still maintains a growth trend in the long run. In the nuclear power equipment manufacturing industry, high-temperature alloy materials have an irreplaceable role due to their excellent characteristics such as high temperature resistance and high strength resistance, and are mainly used in nuclear islands that undertake nuclear reaction work. The main components of high-temperature alloys used in nuclear power equipment include fuel units, control rods, pressure vessels, evaporators, high-temperature gas furnace heat exchangers, etc. These components need to withstand high temperatures of 600°C to 800°C during operation. High creep strength must be used for high-temperature alloy materials.

4, Demand in the Aerospace Sector

At present, there is a big gap between the nickel-based high-temperature alloy in the field of aerospace in China and foreign countries. The turbine blades used in the engines of domestic large aircraft projects, aviation projects and military aircraft are in urgent need of high-performance high-temperature alloys. High-temperature alloy after several generations of development, the current foreign advanced aircraft engines have used single crystal high-temperature alloy to manufacture single crystal turbine blades, the technology is very difficult, there are many defects in the manufacture of domestic blades. Domestic single crystal superalloy materials and blade manufacturing research is weak, aerospace superalloy manufacturing technology has become the key to restrict the development of related industries in China.

5. Needs in the medical field

Titanium-nickel shape memory alloys are widely used in human heart stents, dental correction and other fields. The main production units of titanium nickel memory alloy in China are concentrated in Beijing and Xi'an. With the gradual deepening of R & D investment in China's medical device industry, the technological innovation and material application of medical device products have developed rapidly, and the demand for high-tech materials such as shape memory alloys has shown an obvious upward trend. The demand for shape memory alloys in China's medical field has reached 5 billion billion yuan. At the same time, aerospace, automotive, robotics and other emerging industries for the scale of demand for shape memory alloys also showed a rapid growth trend.