Chinalco "Turning to War": entering the market of high iron and copper materials

The China Aluminum Company, which is in the middle of a "turnround War" (hereinafter "Chinalco"), is not only looking at the opportunities for aluminum in the fast-growing high-speed rail market, but also wants to share the huge demand for "cakes" of copper. January 9, Jiangxi Ganzhou Jiang Tungsten Rafag Copper Material Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jiang Tungsten Lafage") annual output of 40,000 tons of high-speed rail copper project announced production. One of Jiang Tungsten Lafage shareholders Jiangxi rare metal tungsten Industry Holding Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Jiang Tungsten Holdings") that the project to fill the China high-speed rail line industry gap, will be China's high-speed rail contact line, bearing Liso, hanging string, etc. to provide high-strength, high conductive copper alloy materials,　　And that means that China's current reliance on imports of copper-alloy materials for high-speed rail will be changed. Jiang Tungsten Lafage by the Spanish Rafah group, Jiang Tungsten Holdings and other companies to form capital.　　Although Chinalco did not directly hold the Lafage stake in Jiang Tungsten, the integration of Jiang Tungsten Holdings has been determined. March 13 last year, the Jiangxi provincial government and Chinalco signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement under the agreement, Chinalco will be through capital increase, acquisition, project investment and other means to achieve the holding of the Jiang Tungsten holdings.　　April 26 last year, the first joint venture between Chinalco and Jiang Tungsten Co., Ltd. Jiangxi Jiang-ni-Co., Ltd. has completed registration. "Jiang Tungsten holding the introduction of this foreign capital, talk for a long time, in the aluminum and Jiang Tungsten Holdings before the reorganization has been determined, and then we in and Jiang Tungsten holdings to integrate, feel this project is very consistent with the Chinalco strategy, is the development of copper deep-processing."　　A management person in Chinalco told the first financial daily yesterday. After the financial crisis, due to the large capacity of electrolytic aluminum industry surplus, as China's largest electrolytic aluminum production enterprises, Chinalco's operation into a dilemma, had to seek transformation.　　To this end, Chinalco has established the strategy of entering into many metal areas such as copper and rare metals.　　As with the aluminum industry, the current domestic copper industry chain, smelting links, the lowest profit, while the upstream copper mining and downstream copper high-end deep-processing industry profits higher. As part of the transition, last July, Chinalco's listed company, Chinalco, 601600. sh;02600. HK) announced a joint venture with the Swedish Hanseatic group in China to develop an aluminum profile for the rail transit body.　　At that time, the joint venture was accused by some in the industry as "Wolf", is to help strong competitors to "nibble" the domestic market, crushing national industry. But Chinalco believes that this is "catfish effect", the introduction of advanced technology, can speed up the process of high-end product localization to domestic products instead of imports.　　The high-end aluminum used in high-speed rail is now wholly dependent on imports, and the Swedish group is the world's main supplier of high-speed aluminum. The same pattern is used in the copper material field by Jiang Tungsten Holdings. The Spanish Rafah group is a more than 200-year history of copper processing enterprises, especially in high-speed rail catenary products (contact line, bearing Liso, hanging strings) has a strong research and development background and technical strength. Over the past 10 years, the company has participated in more than 10 European high-speed rail lines with copper products production.