China's Graphite Electrode Major Fangda Carbon Forecasts Significant Rise in Profits for 2018

China's largest Graphite electrodes (GE) producer, Fangda Carbon has recently announced its performance forecast for the year 2018.

According to the forecasts, the company's net profit for the full year of 2018 is estimated to be around RMB 5.42 billion (USD 801 million) to RMB 5.72 billion (USD 845 million), a surge of 50% to 58% against last year's profits of RMB 3.62 billion.

The company said that the predictions about an increase in annual profits are based on the following reasons:

In 2018, with the gradual deepening of the national supply-side structural reforms, the company continued to strengthen its management, optimize the product structure, vigorously expand the market with production and management being in efficient synergy resulting which the company's total operating income and net profit achieves steady growth.

In first half of 2018 (Jan-Jun), the company's net profits had been recorded at RMB 1.17 billion which means that the company's profits improved significantly in the latter half of 2018.

Fangda Carbon's dominance in China's GE market

Fangda Carbon which is headquartered in Lanzhou city of Gansu province is China's leading graphite electrodes manufacturer along with producing various other carbon products. The company's current graphite electrode capacity is 10,000 tonnes.

Amid the GE supply tightness, Fangda Carbon along with Shanghai Baosteel Chemical Co. Ltd (the subsidiary of Baosteel Group) has come together to jointly set up a UHP (Ultra-High Power) grade graphite electrode plant under the name of 'Boafang Carbon Material Technology Co. Ltd'. The capacity of this unit is expected to be around 100,000 tonnes per year and is planned to put into operations by 2020.

Fangda Carbon is amongst those few companies in China that manufacture UHP grade graphite electrodes whose quality matches with that of its global peers. The company majorly procures its needle coke requirements from South Korea. The supply-side structural changes in China has highly benefited the GE manufacturers in the country. With the growing importance of EAFs (Electric furnace) in China, the demand for high-quality GE is set to increase thus benefiting the market's big players like Fangda Carbon.