Masan High-Tech Materials of Vietnamese conglomerate Masan Group has achieved a year-on-year increase of 15% in 2022 thanks to strong demand and pricing for Tungsten products.
“We had a year of challenges, overcoming market fluctuations and impacts of various factors in the region and the world. Though Tungsten revenues and tungsten scrap recycling rates were significantly higher, contributing to delivering this record revenue,” Craig Richard Bradshaw, CEO of the company, told its Hanoi annual general meeting on Tuesday.
The company, shortly called MHT, reported its revenue of VND15,550 billion (nearly $662 million) last year. Of the total, its Tungsten trioxide revenue increased by 13%, with midstream products (tungsten carbides and powders) produced by H.C. Starck Tungsten Powders, a Germany-headquarter subsidiary of the company accounting for 70% of that growth. MHT’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) increased by 5%, reaching VND3,203 billion ($136. 36 million) – the second-highest EBITDA ever achieved.
Production from tungsten scrap recycling within H.C. Starck increased by 13%, MTH said, adding it is working to increase the proportion of its production coming from secondary sources (scrap recycling), in keeping with the firm’s “reduce, reuse, recycle” policy.
In 2022, MHT established a global innovation hub based on our two R&D centers in Goslar, Germany and Thai Nguyen, northern Vietnam. Leveraging technological advancements of H.C. Starck over the past 100 years, MHT continued to invest in innovation and process improvement in order to maintain its long-term growth trajectory. It has developed innovative processes, breakthrough solutions, and eco-friendly products to meet the global market’s unmet needs, earning 95 new patents worldwide and 50 patents that are still in the application stage.
With extensive experience and potential in the field of supplying high-tech materials, as well as ongoing research to evaluate the needs of critical industries, MHT said it believes that Tungsten is the "key" to the future of these industries.
In 2022, MHT executed definitive agreements to invest £45m (more than $53.3 million) into Nyobolt Limited, a Britain-based Lithium-ion fast-charging battery solutions company, to promote the application of advanced Tungsten materials in the development and manufacturing of high-performance batteries.
This February, H.C.Starck officially launched new advanced tungsten powders under its trademarked ‘starck2charge’, used specifically in manufacturing safe and fast-charging Li-ion batteries. This type of battery is expected to help solve new problems and establish a comprehensive clean energy ecosystem, especially playing an important role in global electromobility.
At the end of this March, H.C. Starck continued to launch the trademark ‘starck2print’, special tungsten powders and complementary innovation services for 3D printing with high chemical purity and stability, and great significance in the medical and pharmaceutical industries.
The two trademarks are the continuation of MHT’s advanced product portfolio expansion in order to meet the needs of global advanced technology companies and industries.
MHT plans to implement the first-ever and largest Tungsten recycling plant project in Vietnam servicing the Asian region. The goal is to make Vietnam the leading Tungsten and critical metals recycling technology development center in the region.
MHT said in 2023, it will focus on developing a fully integrated circular economy model with a closed value chain that encompasses waste and scrap collection, processing, recycling of scraps, and raw material recovery. The company expects net revenue in 2023 to increase from 6% to 17% compared to the previous period.