Producer
China Hongqiao Group
China Hongqiao Group (Zouping, Shandong; HKEX: 1378; ~$30B+ revenue) is the world's largest aluminum producer by primary aluminum output and consequently one of the world's largest primary gallium producers. Gallium is a byproduct of aluminum production — bauxite contains trace gallium (~0.005% Ga by weight) that is recovered during the Bayer process conversion of bauxite to alumina. Hongqiao's massive Shandong Province aluminum smelting operations (producing ~6 million tonnes of primary aluminum annually) generate significant gallium as a byproduct. Hongqiao sells crude gallium to Chinese gallium refiners who purify it to semiconductor grade (6N+ purity). The company's gallium production is opaque — gallium is not separately reported in Hongqiao's financials — but Hongqiao's scale makes it one of the largest single crude gallium sources globally.
1
Inputs supplied
1
Goods downstream
0
Facilities
0
Stories
What they make
1 input China Hongqiao Group supplies
Click an input to see every good that depends on it, every country that produces it, and every other company in the supply chain.
Where it shows up
Goods downstream
Essential goods that depend on something China Hongqiao Group makes, pick one to see the full supply chain.
What else they do
Business segments
The company's full revenue map, where this supply-chain role fits within their broader business.
Primary Aluminum Production
65%Alumina Refining
20%Bauxite Mining
10%Power Generation & Other
5%
Intelligence
What's known
Sourced claims about this company's role in supply chains, chokepoints, concentration, incidents, dual-use connections.
Did you know2023
China Hongqiao Group is the world's largest aluminum company — producing approximately 6 million tonnes of primary aluminum annually from its Shandong smelters. What the global semiconductor supply chain discovered in 2023 (when China imposed export controls on gallium) is that Hongqiao's massive aluminum production is simultaneously the world's largest crude gallium source. Gallium at ~0.005% concentration in bauxite is extracted as a byproduct of the Bayer process (alumina refining from bauxite) — Hongqiao's scale of alumina processing makes it likely the largest single crude gallium producer globally, though Hongqiao does not report gallium output separately. When aluminum makes a car hood or a beer can, the same bauxite processing yields crude gallium that eventually becomes the GaN semiconductor material enabling 5G base station power amplifiers. China's 2023 gallium export controls — the same week China controlled germanium — exploited a supply chain dependency that ran from Hongqiao's Shandong bauxite processing to Western 5G network infrastructure.
Bloomberg ↗Origin2023
China Hongqiao Group was founded in Zouping, Shandong in 1994 by Zhang Shiping — a former textile factory worker who leveraged China's economic liberalization to build an aluminum empire. Hongqiao's cost advantage in aluminum was partly built on captive coal-fired power generation: by building its own power plants co-located with smelters, Hongqiao avoided Chinese state electricity pricing and operated at electricity costs below those available to competitors using grid power. This practice drew regulatory attention and was partially curtailed after 2015, but during the 2000s-2010s it enabled Hongqiao to grow from a small Shandong company to the world's largest aluminum producer by output. Zhang Shiping became one of China's wealthiest individuals through this model — an aluminum conglomerate built on regulatory arbitrage and captive energy.
China Hongqiao Group Limited ↗