Arnoud Willems

Arnoud is a trade partner at Baker McKenzie and has over 25 years of experience as a respected and trusted advisor of entrepreneurs, executives, and diplomats with an extensive network. He helps clients to navigate through complex rules and in their decision-making processes, manage their risks, become more successful and proactive in their long-term planning and strategy.  Arnoud has been consistently recognized by various platforms as one of the key trade and customs lawyers in Europe/Belgium e.g. Lexology Client Choice Awards, Chambers, Best Lawyers, WhosWho Legal, WorldECR and in the last 15 years was ranked in the top band. In support of this ranking, clients referred to Arnoud as a “born strategist”, “visionary”, “tenacious”, “results driven”, and “pro-active”. Arnoud strives to make legal rules understandable for the company decision makers, look for practical solutions, break new ground support closing legal gaps, getting regulators to adapt or clarify rules to make them more useful, predictable, and uniform, and, where possible, create new rules

Benedicte Allard

Engaged in R&D on carbon and graphite products for former Carbone Savoie, since 1990, mainly in the field of aluminum industry. R&D Director at Tokai COBEX since Jan 2022.

Grace Liang

Grace Liang works as a Senior Analyst of SAGSI covering silicone, and holds a master on applied chemistry of the Wuhan University of Technology.

Ms Liang has accumulated 7 years’ experience in market analysis for silicone products. Since the member of SAGSI, Ms Liang led and participated in dozens of industry research projects, such as market analysis reports on various segments of the silicone industry as well as development planning reports for multiple parks in China. And the research project of the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China, in response to the implementation of the POPs Convention regarding D4, D5, and D6, also witnessed her active involvement.

Stephan Louw

Stephan is a qualified metallurgical engineer with 15 years’ experience in pyrometallurgical production process management and -process designs. He started his career in pyrometallurgy at samancor chrome where he gained valuable experience on ferrochrome smelting in dc-arc furnaces. He has been employed by metix, sms group since 2015 where he has been involved with various projects, spanning over a wide commodity range. With a great passion for the design-, modelling- and optimization of metallurgical processes, he is currently employed as the process manager at metix, sms group, focusing on development of new process- and furnace designs that will assist in making the circular economy- and decarburization of commodities a reality.

Dr Benoist Ollivier

Over twenty-five years of experience in the metallurgical industry

In charge of Operations, R&D, Technology and Environment and Sustainable Development within Ferroglobe

Strong technical background, resulting from significant and varied experience gained in varied roles in production and operations

Formerly, EVP Production Planning and Technology

Prior to that, in charge of Business Development for the FerroAtlantica Group

Over 15 years in various technical and commercial roles at plant level, in France and South Africa

4 years as R&D project manager at Pechiney Central Research Center

Holds a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry

Simon Large

Simon Large is an Analyst at CRU, based in London. He specialises in analysing and forecasting market fundamentals and prices for the primary aluminium and value added products market. Simon is the editor of CRU’s long-term market outlook for aluminium and has a focus on the decarbonisation pathway of the aluminium value chain. He has experience in research and exploration in different commodities having worked in the London Centre for Ore Deposits and Exploration at the Natural History Museum, London.

Daniel Bajolet

An Arts et Métiers engineer, he spent most of his career in the Rhône-Poulenc/Rhodia Group. After becoming Global Industrial Director of Rhodia Silicone, he participated in the sale of this activity to Bluestar. He then became the advisor to Mr Ren, CEO of the state holding company Chemchina. In this capacity, he supervises the entire industrial chain from silicon metal to silicones, then to solar silicon.

Back in France retirement, Daniel Bajolet is one of the co-creators and CTO of ROSI, a startup specializing in recycling losses from the photovoltaic industrial chain as a whole. After developing an industrial demonstrator partially funded by ADEME and BPI, ROSI inaugurated its first industrial unit for the recycling and revalorization of 3000 TPY of end-of-life panels in the Grenoble region on June 20, 2023.

Valdiney Domingos de Oliveira

Valdiney is a Chemical Engineer with a Master’s in Metallurgy of Silicon gas refining and 24 years of experience in this Industry. He built a robust reference portfolio in Optimum Engineering Design toward high-performance operations of the Metallurgical Silicon process. He operated different plants worldwide running Submerged Arc Furnaces with a broad range of various raw materials and technologies, from Graphitized and Amorphous Carbon Electrodes to Self-Baking (Aluminum) and Composite Technologies in different systems and equipment characteristics. He also developed the powerful methodology called Operational Excellence Diagnostics applied to Silicon and Ferroalloys plants. He compiled the Silicon 5.0 concepts (used in the Silicon Greenfield Projects and Brownfield expansions).  

With unique expertise within the entire Silicon supply Chain (from Quartz mining, Charcoal, woodchips, and Carbon electrode process and application; to the downstream application of Silicon into the TCS (Polysilicon) process. Valdiney is the Founder and CEO of Siemex Solutions GmbH and the actual CTO of Reliance Industries Limited in Jamnagar project for a Greenfield Totally Integrated Giga Factory of Solar Photovoltaics, plus 2 Giga Factories of Battery and Green Hydrogen.  Valdiney will participate in the roundtable discussions today to share his thoughts about the Forecast of Silicon for different applications, focusing on Solar Photovoltaics

Nadia Vinck

Since 2006, in charge of EHS (Chemical Regulations, Industrial Emission Directive, transport regulations, …). Since October 2019, in charge of Energy & Climate. Between 2012 and 2016, Chair of a CEN ferro-alloys sub-group on "Greenhouse gas emissions in energy-intensive industries”.

Previously, 17 years’ experience in waste management, with 3 years at the European Commission, and 11 years at FOST Plus (Belgian Green Dot system on packaging wastes). Consultant for UNEP to draft a technical guideline on hazardous wastes.

Bio-Engineer with an additional Master in Biotechnology.

Jorn de Linde

Jorn P. de Linde was appointed to his current position following the merger between Resource Strategies Inc. and CRU International in April 1996. Based in the United States, he specialises in ferroalloys-related research, with particular emphasis on silicon-based alloys and electric power, drawing on 30 years of experience. In addition to the manganese ferroalloy cost data service, Mr de Linde is the principal author of CRU’s silicon metal market outlook and silicon cost data service reports. Mr de Linde also is a contributor to other CRU ferroalloy-related reports, including the Bulk Ferroalloys Monitor. He earned an MSc Degree in Mineral Economics from the Pennsylvania State University in the USA and holds an MBA (Siviløkonom) from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration in Bergen, Norway.
Agenda Title: Chairman’’s Opening Remarks
Agenda Time: 09:00 - 09:10
Agenda Day: 09 November 2021

Merete Tangstad

Prof. Merete Tangstad took her MSc and PhD at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and has since 2004 been a professor at the same university. Previously she worked at Elkem and Eramet mainly focusing on Mn-ferroalloy production. Her main areas are silicon and ferroalloy production in Submerged Arc Furnaces ranging from raw materials, furnace operation and tapping. She has been co-authoring a number of books including Production of manganese ferroalloys (2007).

Li Wang

Li Wang is a senior analyst based in CRU Beijing covering Si metal and steel. Ms Wang holds a MSc in metallurgical engineering and has 15 years’ experience dedicating to industrial metal market analysis. She joined CRU in 2013 after seven years’ steel consulting work in HATCH Beddows. Ms Wang also worked on strategy development and risk management at Ping An bank in China. The rich work experience as well as technical education background enabled her to interpret Chinese market pertinently, precisely and predicatively.

Simon Price

Simon is CEO of Exawatt, which provides strategic consulting, detailed cost forecasting and supply-chain analysis in sectors that are united by common theme: decarbonisation through electrification. These include energy storage, electric vehicles (EV), power electronics and solar PV. Exawatt’s customers span the entire supply chain, from mining companies to major solar/storage developers and EV manufacturers. The company was acquired by CRU Group in early 2023.

Prior to founding Exawatt in 2015, Simon was the co-founder of a PV module factory design and integration company. In 2008, he was part of the founding team of a startup technology company dedicated to improving the efficiency of crystalline silicon solar cells. An electrical engineer by first degree, Simon began his career in the UK steel industry and spent time in the US as a business and technology journalist, management consultant and CEO of a publicly traded US software company, before making the move into renewable energy in 2008.

Simon holds a master’s degree in Science Communication from Imperial College London, and an undergraduate degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

Paula Ramirez-Weyershausen

Dr. Reiner Haus

For decades Dr. Haus´s focus is on specialty minerals and rare metals with a strong academic background in Engineering Geology and Mineral Processing. After his PhD he held senior research manager positions at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston, Mass.

In 2000 he was appointed managing director and in 2010 became shareholder of Dorfner AnzaplanGmbH, a leading independent analytical, consulting and engineering firm in critical minerals and metals based in Germany with projects globally. Dr. Haus completed his EMBA in 2005 and recently became chairman of M.Plan International, a joint venture of Dorfner Anzaplan and Micon International based in Toronto, Canada.

Alex Nielsen

Alex Nielsen has since 1996 been the CEO & President of the Polchar group of Companies with factories in Poland producing specialized chemical carbon reductants (char) for the alloy industries, mainly FeSi & SiMetal. In the last 10 years the group has expanded into production of charcoal (biochar). He has through this job obtained extensive knowledge on coal, coke, char and biocarbon uses worldwide, both in specialized niches and for power generation. He also has considerable knowledge on the various production processes for alloys.

Guilherme Antunes Pereira

Guilherme has a degree in business administration with specialization in finance, international business and metallurgy. Working for 23 years in the metallurgical area, he joined Minasligas 11 years ago as commercial manager.

Hajime Nagasaka

Andrzej Hotlos

Benedicte Allard

Engaged in In R&D on carbon and graphite products for former Carbone Savoie, since 1990, mainly in the field of aluminum industry. R&D Director at Tokai COBEX since Jan 2022.

Harry M Rong

Born 1963 PhD in Inorganic chemistry 1992 from the Technical University of Trondheim (NTH), Norway 1991 Product development engineer, Elkem Meraker 1992-1996: Product development engineer, Elkem Fiskaa 1996-1997: Research Manager SINTEF 1998-2000: Production Manger Elkem Thamshavn 2001-2017: Director product development and innovation, Elkem Silicon 2018-today: Senior Specialist silicon, Elkem Silicon   Founder (together with Professor H. A. Øye) of the conference series Silicon for the Chemical and Solar Industry 38 years experience with silicon research and development

Philipp Hauser

Serving as Business Development Director at the Soler group, Philipp Hauser has dedicated two decades to understanding and shaping climate policies. At Agora Industry, his role involved creating regulatory solutions for industries like steel and chemicals. His contributions, including insights on the EU ETS Reform and the development of Carbon Contracts and CCfDs, have been part of discussions leading to policy changes in heavy industries. With this background, Philipp's attention now turns to exploring strategies for industries using carbon and carbon-based feedstocks, including silicon production.