Paul Adkins, Founder and Managing Director of specialist consulting firm AZ China Ltd, has had over 30 years of experience in the aluminium industry, including 13 years at Alcoa, 4 years at Tomago Aluminium and 3 years at Alcan Australia.

AZ China is a specialist consulting company, with a focus on the global and Chinese aluminium industry.   

We at AlCircle are really glad to get an interview from Mr Paul Adkins, which is entirely based upon the upcoming AZ China Virtual Conference happening on 16 -18 November 2021and hereby goes the details:

AlCircle: What does the theme of AZ China Virtual Conference “Beyond The Horizon” signify? 

Mr Paul Adkins: May I start by thanking Alcircle for being a media partner for our conference. We greatly appreciate your support.

Conferences are a time to step back from the “noise” of everyday business and to look at the longer term. Based on President Xi Jinping’s proclamation that China would achieve peak emissions before 2030, we felt that the year 2030 was a good horizon to aim for. 

There are many challenges facing the global aluminium industry in the years ahead, so it is timely to take stock of whether we are heading in the right direction.

AlCircle: Why did AZ China raise questions on the aluminium industry’s ability to shift to truly green? How it will be addressed during the conference on 16th -18th November 2021?

Mr Paul Adkins: For most smelters, 60% of their emissions occur at the coal-fired power station. It’s all very well to reduce PFCs, or maintain scrubbing systems, or even install inert anode technology, but those measures are not reducing the emissions at the power stations. In fact, only China has been relocating capacity to areas where there is spare green electricity.

We will have a major session on green aluminium at the conference, including speeches which look at the very long term challenges, to 2050. Several other sessions will look at the move to green as part of their remit.

AlCircle: What are the major topics on the challenges of the aluminium industry that will be discussed at the conference?

Mr Paul Adkins: The conference will start with a keynote speech from world-renowned Futurist, Matthew Griffin. He has some remarkable things to say about what life will be like in the year 2030, including the battle between electric cars and hydrogen-fuelled cars, about things like hand-held devices and portable computers, all of which consume aluminium.

From there we will look at green aluminium, China’s 45mt capacity cap, alumina, and downstream and recycling. On the carbon side, we will examine where will all the extra petroleum coke come from, and we will hold our regular CPC forum.

AlCircle: Can you please share with us how Chinese the aluminium sector battling with a power crisis? Do you think the experts at the conference can bring out a long term solution to it?

Mr Paul Adkins: The current power crisis inside China is about policy deployment gone wrong. Although the problems will persist, once we get past the Beijing Winter Olympics, the coal situation will improve. The biggest impact is in the area of new/replacement capacity, which was due to start up in Q4 2021 but will be delayed by 3-6 months.

I do not expect the short-term problems to impact China’s commitments on emissions and energy in the long term. The aluminium industry has its challenges to meet the 2030 commitments, which are far greater challenges than the short-term problems.

AlCircle: What is the future of China aluminium industry keeping in mind the 2030 emissions targets and the global demand?

Mr Paul Adkins: The future for China’s aluminium industry is quite bright, in a way. AZ China expects another 4-5 million tonnes of green capacity to be added between now and 2030, taking its total to about 8.5 million tonnes. Considering that by then, green aluminium will be in great demand, while China will be producing about 50% of the entire world’s green metal. With premiums for green metal coming, this will put Chinese producers in the box seat.

AlCircle: What are the various subjects in regards to the global aluminium industry (non-China) that will be discussed at the conference?

Mr Paul Adkins: All our subjects relate to the global industry.

China makes almost 60% of the entire world’s primary aluminium. So of course, there will be a focus on what China will do in the future. For instance, China’s capacity cap of 45mt of primary metal will impact other countries. China will compete with other countries for scarce commodities such as anode grade petcoke and also China will probably bring in its version of the inert anode. We have sessions on technology, and papers about the Global dry bulk shipping industry among others. But you cannot separate China from any discussion about aluminium.

AlCircle: How do rate the success of AZ China? If the best then please brief us.

Mr Paul Adkins: There is a reason why there are so many conferences. Some people see conferences as an easy way to make money, but at AZ China, our focus is laser-like, on providing our delegates and customers with the best insights and analysis. We measure our success on the feedback scores from our delegates. That’s all that matters to us.

We have 43 experts gathered to address and answer delegates’ questions, from all over the world, including Guinea, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the USA, Sweden, the Middle East, India and of course China. All these experts are available to the delegates for a conference fee of only US$120. 

This is enormous value for money.