The global magnesium industry has traditionally offered a product with a very high embedded CO2 factor. Magontec’s new cast house at Golmud in Qinghai Province PRC is the cleanest magnesium alloy production unit in the world.

At the Qinghai facility Magontec benefits from an energy supply that is 75% hydro and nearly 10% solar. This ensures that the product delivered to Magontec customers all over the world has a lower embedded CO2 factor than magnesium alloy product exported from other producers in China or produced elsewhere in the world.  Magontec’s Qinghai plant is estimated to have a CO2 emission of just 6 to 7 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of material produced compared to up to 20 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of material elsewhere in China

The magnesium industry has traditionally used SF6 of SO2 to manage the tendency of magnesium to oxidise through the alloying and casting processes. At the new Golmud facility Magontec uses the much less harmful HFC134A. The global warming potential of SF6, now banned in many parts of the world, and the corrosive effects of SO2 are absent at this facility creating a more benign operating environment for employees, the factory structure and the planet.