Do Europe and America want to produce gallium themselves? Shandong Binzhou's annual electricity consumption of 123.5 billion kilowatt hours directly scares them out

The ancient Chinese ancestor left many classic sayings to future generations, such as hitting the snake and hitting the seven inch mark, coming without disrespect, and so on.In recent years, some European and American countries used some unfounded reasons to restrict the development of China's Semiconductor industry, trying to hinder the progress of China's advanced industries, and then consolidate their position in competitive industries and their leadership in the global industry chain

The ancient Chinese ancestor left many classic sayings to future generations, such as hitting the snake and hitting the seven inch mark, coming without disrespect, and so on.

In recent years, some European and American countries used some unfounded reasons to restrict the development of China's Semiconductor industry, trying to hinder the progress of China's advanced industries, and then consolidate their position in competitive industries and their leadership in the global industry chain.

For their restrictions, China can only sit idly by. They have their own restrictive measures, and China also has the magic weapon of China's countermeasures.

A few days ago, the Ministry of Commerce announced controls on the export of gallium and germanium. This may seem like just an ordinary export control for mineral products, but it is actually not simple.

Because gallium and germanium are crucial rare metals, they are crucial substances in the manufacturing of semiconductor materials and play crucial roles in semiconductors, military industry, aerospace, new energy, and more.

After China imposed restrictions on the export of gallium and germanium, Europe and America also became anxious.

However, some media outlets in Europe and the United States still have a tough mouth, believing that China's restrictions on gallium and germanium exports are only a short-term impact. In the long run, they can still establish their own gallium and germanium industry chain to break away from dependence on China.

For example, Bloomberg issued a "warning" to China, claiming that "although China is the largest producer of gallium and germanium, these metals are not difficult to find. China has only maintained its cheapness, and once the West catches up, China will lose its dominant position.

Bloomberg's warning is so scary, as if China's restrictions are not painful, but they have no understanding of the stakes involved.

Firstly, China is not the only producer or reserve country for gallium and germanium, as well as other countries around the world. However, it is not so easy to extract these two metals.

Here, everyone first needs to understand the extraction process of metal gallium.

Gallium is a metal element with very low content in the crust, and it does not have a separate deposit. Most of it is extracted from aluminum oxide (Al2O3) or garnet. According to relevant data statistics,More than 90% of the global "gallium" prospective reserves are associated with BauxiteA small portion is found in zinc ore or other minerals.

So currently, the vast majority of gallium worldwide is produced through electrolytic aluminum, and the specific refining process is roughly as follows:

The first step is to dissolve the aluminum ore and transfer the liquid aluminum to a cooling device for cooling. During this process, gallium and other elements will be excluded from the aluminum lattice.

The second step is to extract pure gallium from it through chemical or electrochemical methods.

The third step is to further refine and purify the extracted gallium to achieve the purity required for industrial or scientific research.

This doesn't seem very difficult, after all, there are not many countries around the world that have aluminum mines. Moreover, a large part of China's aluminum mines currently rely on external imports, and China's import dependence on aluminum mines is currently about 60%.

So many people feel that we limit loneliness, but the truth is not so.

Although gallium and aluminum are associated, it is not necessarily that there is gallium with aluminum. In fact, the current global gallium reserves are relatively concentrated.

According to relevant data statistics, as of 2022, the global metal reserves of gallium are approximately 279300 tons, of which China has 190000 tons of gallium metal reserves, accounting for about 68% of the global proportion. The remaining reserves are mainly concentrated in a few countries such as Russia and Ukraine.

So currently, the global gallium production countries are mainly concentrated in several countries, including China, Russia, Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, among which China ranks first, Russia ranks second, and Ukraine ranks third.

However, in the past two years, due to some special factors, the production of gallium in Russia and Ukraine has been greatly affected, of which the production of gallium in Ukraine has been directly stopped, and the production of gallium in Russia has also declined significantly compared with the previous years.

So currently, the global production of gallium is mainly concentrated in China. For example, in 2021, the world produced nearly 430 tons of gallium, of which China accounted for 420 tons, accounting for nearly 98%.

The reason why China's gallium production accounts for a high proportion in the world is that China is not only the country with the largest gallium reserves, but also the country with the largest electrolytic aluminum production. In the process of electrolytic aluminum production, many gallium ores are also produced. At present, Aluminum Corporation of China Limited is the largest producer of gallium in China, and other electrolytic aluminum enterprises are also the main producers of gallium.

To produce gallium metal, you not only need to have reserves of gallium, but also need to establish a huge electrolytic aluminum industry chain.

But the electrolytic aluminum industry chain does not just want to produce, and the biggest obstacle is the cost of electricity.

Those familiar with the electrolytic aluminum industry know that electrolytic aluminum is an electric tiger industry, and the production process of electrolytic aluminum requires a large amount of electricity bills.

According to the current level of technology,The amount of electricity required to produce one ton of electrolysis is approximately 13000 to 13500 tons. Based on my industrial electricity consumption, the electricity cost per ton can be considerable.

From a practical perspective, cities with relatively large production of electrolytic aluminum in China often consume a lot of electricity, with Binzhou in Shandong being a typical example.

At present, the output of aluminum oxide, electrolytic aluminum and aluminum processing in Binzhou City ranks first in the country. In 2022, the output value of aluminum cluster will reach 477.8 billion yuan. The output of aluminum oxide, electrolytic aluminum and aluminum processing in the city will respectively account for 23.2%, 13.3% and 11.1% of the national output, ranking first in the country.

Because the production of aluminum related industries is very large, Binzhou's electricity consumption is very large. For example, in 2021, Binzhou's GDP was 28.721 billion yuan, which did not even enter the top 100 cities in China. However, in 2021, Binzhou's annual electricity consumption reached 123.54 billion kilowatt hours, ranking third in the country, second only to Shanghai and Suzhou, and more than first tier cities such as Beijing, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou.

From this, it can be seen that the electrolytic aluminum industry is very power consuming.

I see that many people may not take it seriously, thinking that electricity consumption is not a big deal. According to the current technological and economic capabilities of Europe and America, as long as they have the determination, even if they consume more electricity, they can still establish the electrolytic aluminum industry and use it to produce gallium.

But this approach is clearly impossible to achieve.

On the one hand, the electricity consumption of the electrolytic aluminum industry will ultimately be converted into pollution caused by the power generation industry. In recent years, some European and American countries have very strict environmental requirements and have actively closed many thermal and nuclear power plants, so it is clearly impossible for them to consume a large amount of electricity prices to produce electrolytic aluminum and produce gallium.

On the other hand, the cost of electrolytic aluminum industry is very high,The profit is very low, as it requires a large amount of electricity bills, so the cost of electrolytic aluminum is very high. At present, the complete cost of one ton of electrolytic aluminum in China is about 18000 yuan, but the profit is only about 620 yuan/ton, which is only about 3% relative to the profit margin. Moreover, this is based on the premise that China's industrial chain is perfect and China is the largest consumer market for electrolytic aluminum.

If some countries in Europe and America come to produce electrolytic aluminum, let alone profit, they will incur huge losses and suffer huge environmental pollution and losses for hundreds of tons of gallium. I estimate that European and American companies will not do so.

Moreover, in recent years, some countries in Europe and America have been actively phasing out some electrolytic aluminum industries to produce gallium.

For example, Germany and Kazakhstan stopped gallium production in 2016 and 2013 respectively, while Hungary and Ukraine stopped gallium production in 2015 and 2019 respectively.

For electrolytic aluminum, due to the increase in energy costs, the reduction in production of electrolytic aluminum in Europe has further expanded. According to incomplete statistics, the reduction in overseas electrolytic aluminum production capacity reached over 1.58 million tons from 2022 to 2023.

It is precisely because of this that global gallium production is further concentrated in China.

So some European and American media say that after China controls the export of gallium, they can produce it themselves. It's easy to say, but it's obviously not very practical to do.

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