International Tar Association

Dr. Zygmunt Stompel received his MSc diploma in coal science from Silesian Technical University in Gliwice in 1970, and immediately after joined the Institute for Chemical Processing of Coal in Zabrze, where he spent the next 20 years. In the Research & Development sector Dr. Stompel specialized in processing of coal tar, with particular attention paid to pitch and pitch coke. His PhD thesis (in 1978) was devoted to the subject of manufacturing of pitch coke of improved graphitizability.
In 1991 Dr. Stompel left the Institute and has established a private company Coal-Chem Engineers & Consultants. As a consultant he participated in several international projects aimed at improving efficiency of coal tar industry in Poland and abroad.
Dr Stompel taught coal tar science at Silesian Technical University in Gliwice and Academy of Mining and Metallurgy in Krakow. He is active as a consultant on coal tar matters for various Polish and international organizations.

Justin joined CRU in 2017 and has overall responsibility for the Aluminium Raw Materials team, covering bauxite, alumina, coal tar, pitch, petroleum coke and anodes.
Prior to CRU, Justin worked for over a decade in commodity markets, with trading, research & sales roles at leading investment banks, Macquarie, BNP Paribas and CIBC, in both London and New York. Justin has a wide range of experience in non-ferrous, ferrous and precious metals, alongside oil, gas and freight.
Justin holds a BSc in Economics and Finance and an MSc in Economics and Econometrics from Bristol University.

Graduated from Tianjin Foreign Languages Institute and majored in International Trade. 1994 – 2002, worked in a famous international trading house named Nichimen Corporation in Tianjin, China and deeply engaged in international business, including machinery, auto parts, bearings, electric appliances and chemical products.
1992 – 2006, worked in JECT Corporation Beijing office, mainly working for all kinds of carbon business, including Needle Coke, Graphite Electrode, Green Petroleum Coke, Calcined Petroleum Coke, Metallurgical Coke, Foundry Coke, Coal Tar Pitch and recarb etc. Heavily provided raw materials to steel, aluminum and chemical industries with rich experience and technical knowledge.
Since 2007, worked in East River Asia Limited as consultant to provide professional services to the customers all over the word with Chinese carbon and chemical industries.

Dr. Anne LeHuray serves as Executive Director of the Naphthalene Council and of the Pavement Coatings Technology Council, trade associations that advocate and conduct research on behalf of naphthalene producers and users and manufacturers of tar-based pavement coatings. Previously, Dr. LeHuray was employed at the American Chemistry Council, the trade association for the chemical industry in the U.S. She has worked as an environmental consultant and as an academic research scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

Vince Guercio has a chemical engineering degree and over 50 years’ experience in the international petrochemical, petroleum and natural gas businesses. For the past 40 years, he has been an independent consultant providing commercial and technical advice about the interactions that occur at the refinery/LPG/petrochemical interfaces. He specializes in the utilization of steam cracker byproducts such as butadiene, C5s and carbon black oil (CBO). Due to his ethylene byproduct experience, in 1982 Vince became heavily involved in carbon black feedstock from naphtha crackers, FCCs and coal tar. Since then, he has offered consulting services in the pricing, marketing, evaluation and acquisition of CBO. Since 1988, he has published the CBO MONITOR which provides reliable market intelligence about worldwide CBO and carbon black. Vince was educated by Catholic University of America, Princeton University and the U.S. Army. His corporate experience includes Mobil Oil, Lummus and Foster Wheeler.

Jennifer Montgomery graduated from Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon with a Bachelor of Arts in International Business and earned her Masters of Science in Logistic Management from Maine Maritime Academy.
Jennifer began her maritime career working for Hapag-Lloyd in their container division prior to transitioning to the drybulk sector. In 2005 Jennifer joined Pacific Rim Shipbrokers, located in Bainbridge Island, Washington, as a shipbroker negotiating contract terms and freight rates for cargoes between 10,000 to 75,000 metric tons for clients around the globe. Through this work with Pacific Rim Shipbrokers, Jennifer developed business experience negotiating freight contracts centered on coal based products, including charter parties for the transportation and handling of solid coal tar pitch cargos on a global basis. In 2016 Jennifer became President and one of the co-owners of Pacific Rim Shipbrokers, Inc., where she continues to provide guidance, market research and competitive freight rates to her clients on a wide range of commodities including, but not limited to concentrates, pitch, steels, scrap, fertilizer, chemicals, minerals, project cargo and agricultural products. Company website: www.pacrimfix.com
Jennifer is excited to be joining the 2018 International Tar Association Conference as an invited speaker and looks forward to meeting the association’s membership and conference delegates.

Etienne Rigaut is Senior Sales Manager at Sulzer Chemtech Ltd since September 2017, mainly in charge of developing the Chinese market for fractional crystallization applications in the chemical industry, including hybrid systems and purification of carbochemical products. He has an extensive expertise in project management in the field of chemical engineering from early phase feasibility studies up to completion of large engineering contracts for process plants. Over the past 10 years, he successfully developed many full scale coal tar distillation and coal chemicals upgrading projects worldwide. He holds a master degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Institut Catholique d’Arts et Métiers in Lille, France.

Mi Zhang, manager of Ministry of Coal Chemical Business in Baiinfo, has been devoting herself to coal chemical market analysis and research since she joined in Baiinfo in 2008. She always keeps close contact with the coal chemical enterprises, industry associations, customs and colleages and universities from domestic and abroad. Ms.Zhang has organised China coal chemical conference many times. With abundant experience, she also shows her leverage to the industry, and being recognized and praised by the industry. Email: zhangmi@baiinfo.com

Mr. Yasuaki Nakagawa is currently a manager of Carbon Department in Mitsubishi International Corporation Houston Office. He is a representative of all the Mitsubishi Corporation’s Steel and Aluminum related carbon material sales in North, Central and South American region. Especially, he is engaged in Anode sales in aluminum smelters.
He began his professional career at Graphite Electrode trading department in Mitsubishi Corporation Tokyo head quarter since 2010, and has been in charge of Japanese and Chinese electrode sales in South East Asian, Australian markets mainly, then he gained extensive international experience traveling to many countries across the globe.
In 2013, he was selected as a global trainee and dispatched to Yangon, Myanmar where explosive economic growth was happened after a decades of international isolation. And learned business creation skill during 6 months with political reforming by democratic government.
In 2014, he moved back to Tokyo, Japan where he took the position of sales and managements for Japanese cathode and carbon refractory manufacturing company, Nippon Electrode Co., Ltd (NDK). He also had responsibility for exploring new business possibilities in China, and supported NDK’s business development with staying over 6 months in China.
From 2016, he was appointed Manager at Mitsubishi’s US carbon marketing representative, where he held sales manager positions for a variety of products, such as Calcined Coke, Needle Coke, Graphite electrode, carbon refractory, Coal Tar Pitch, Coal Tar, Creosote Oil, Pitch Coke, Anode and Cathode.

Laurence Goldfarb has been in the metals business since 1988. Having graduated from Harvard College with a degree in East Asian Studies (Japanese and Chinese History and Language), Laurence joined Mitsubishi International Corporation in New York, and helped develop their aluminum trading business, including spending about six months in Tokyo to learn about metals trading in Japan and Asia. In 1996, Laurence joined Pechiney World Trade USA, the trading subsidiary of Pechiney Corporation, formerly the world’s third largest aluminum producer. In 2000, Laurence founded Laurand Associates originally as a consulting business, and since 2004, as a trading/distribution business to supply primary and secondary aluminum and related metals to a broad range of aluminum consumers throughout North America. Laurand handles spot and forward physical contracts, as well as London Metals Exchange (LME) futures and options, as well as CME futures for risk management purposes.

Dr. Fengqin Liu is a Professor of Engineering and recipient of various government subsidies as well as the National Technical Talent award. She is the Technical Manager at the China Non-Ferrous Metal Mining (Group) Co. Ltd.; Deputy Director of China Non-Ferrous Metals Institute Light Metal Academic Committee; Director of Aluminum-used Carbon Research Committee; and is a member of the China Non-Ferrous Metals Association Expert Committee.
As the well-known expert in aluminum smelting and aluminum-used carbon fields, Dr. Liu was in charge of setting up technological development planning and standards for relative industries. She led dozens of major scientific and technical projects at both provincial and national levels, solving a series of technical problems in the aluminum smelting industry. She hosted three international aluminum-used carbon conferences. As a scientist and expert in her field, she was invited to visit and conduct collaborative research in Australia, the U.S. and Switzerland, and gave large-scale presentations at several international metallurgy conferences.
Some of Dr. Liu’s published achievements include: “The Key Technology of Quality Carbon Anode for Aluminum Smelting”, “The Integrated Technologies to Improve the Life Span of Aluminum Smelting Cell”, “The Technology of New Structure for Aluminum Smelting Cell”, and “The New Technology of Wettable Cathode Production”. She is the recipient of the National Science & Technology Progress Award, has won the Provincial & Ministerial Award three times, and many other awards in recognition of her technological contributions and she has designed 50 national patents.
Dr. Liu is published in English as well: “Chinese Raw Materials for Anode Manufacturing”, “Production Technology of Aluminum Smelting" and “Production Technology of Aluminum-used Carbon” under the series of China Non-Ferrous Metals book selection. She is also the main author of the Carbon Volume for the “Encyclopedia of Metallurgy”, “Manual of Aluminum Production Technology" and “Advances of Nonferrous Metals” and has delivered over 40 papers on the importance of technical conferences and journals both at home and abroad.

Deng Xiaoxing graduated from China Foreign Affairs College, majoring in Business English. He has twenty years experiences of all kinds of carbon business, including Met Coke, Foundry Coke, Green Coke, Calcined Coke, Coal Tar Pitch, Anode, Cathode, Needle Coke, Graphite Electrode and recarb etc. He is heavily involved in steel, coke, aluminum, and chemicals industries and possesses a tremendous understanding and technical knowledge of carbon industry and also has vast experiences in logistics. 1992 - 2005, he was a key staff member in Nichimen and JECT Corporation, a Japan based trading company, and positioned as General Manager of the Beijing Office 2002-2005. He also set-up a J/V tar distillation plant in China for JECT in 2003, and worked as V.P. responsible for Pitch sales for both domestic and export markets. 2005, he set up own company, focusing on consulting services for the carbon and chemical industries.

Mohinder Kumar Singhania is Director and CEO of Epsilon Carbon Pvt. Ltd. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering and Diploma in Management.
Having a professional techno – commercial experience of about 38 year in chemical and petrochemical industry. He has hands on experience in business strategy, business development, project execution and plant operation.
In past, he has successfully executed several green and brown field projects and has handled assignments as Business unit head.
Mohinder is associated with Epsilon Carbon since its inception in 2011 and is developing understanding of Indian coal tar chemical market and its business dynamics.