International Tar Association

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.

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.

Mr. Tim Bart is the owner of Carbon Management International, a consulting company formed in 1999. Since 2017, Mr. Bart has been working with Mr. Guercio reporting on carbon black feedstock through the CBO Monitor publication. Prior to 2017, Carbon Management was primarily involved in global coal tar and coal tar distillation, consulting and sourcing distillation products for related downstream industries. Mr. Bart is also involved with the management of the International Tar Association, serving as the association’s president since 2014. Mr. Bart received degrees in Environmental Science, Masters of Business Administration, Masters of Communications and Masters of International Relations from Rutgers University, Fairleigh Dickinson University and Seton Hall University.

Siew Hua Seah is the Senior Editor for Ferrous Markets at Argus Media. She oversees a team that spans Asia Pacific, Europe and the Americas covering the iron ore, met coal, steel and metallics markets. In her 18 years reporting on commodities, she has covered the thermal coal, bitumen, LNG, freight, fertilizers, iron ore and met coal markets. In addition to her time at Argus, Siew Hua was a research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies-Saudi Aramco in 2014, researching Indonesia’s natural gas policies.

Andrew Jones is an independent analyst and researcher on the mineral commodity markets. He established Resource-Net in Brussels, Belgium in 1999. Resource-Net's main interest lies in metallurgical reductants, producing regular research on the global markets for:

• Metallurgical and foundry coke
• Anthracite for reduction applications, metallurgical coke replacements
• Metallurgical coals (coking, PCI)

Andrew has more than 20 years' professional experience, including periods of employment at Metal Bulletin Research (London) and Standard Bank (Johannesburg). Professional qualifications include an honours degree in metallurgy from the University of Sheffield and a masters degree in multinational commerce from Boston University Brussels.

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.

Ravindra works as an Analyst at CRU Group in the Aluminum team focusing on the carbon products market. He is responsible for global market analysis of carbon products (excluding China) and price assessments of coal tar, coal pitch & calcined coke. He has five years of work experience in commodity research with a focus on the energy and metals sectors. He holds a BSc in Science from HNBG University and an MBA in Oil and Gas Management from the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies.

Dr. Zygmunt Stompel received his MSc diploma in coal science from Silesian Technical University in Gliwice, 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.

Ir. Kris Truyens holds a MSc in bioscience engineering - chemical engineering from University of Leuven. He joined Rain Carbon in 2010 and is heading Rain Carbon’s Chemical Intermediates business unit.