International Tar Association

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Joseph began at CRU in early 2022 and has over 10 years' experience in the commodities sector. Starting in Glencore’s aluminium trading division as an analyst he subsequently worked in two mining private equity funds, Pallinghurst LLP and Zamin Ferrous, focusing on mining acquisitions and restructurings in Africa and Latin America. This included the acquisition of Anglo Amapa for $300m. In 2019 Joseph successfully completed the €750m acquisition of a European ports and logistics operator on behalf of a secondary aluminium producer. Joseph’s career began at Lazard in 2003. He graduated from Oxford with a degree in mathematics.

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.

Gilles Franceschini is the Head of By-Products Sales in the Procurement Organization of ArcelorMittal Flat Europe. He holds an Engineering degree in Materials Chemistry from Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Lille, France. Gilles started his career in 2006 in the plant of ArcelorMittal Dunkerque as Support Engineer in the By-Products department. In 2007, he moved to Global R&D Maizières les Metz as Research Engineer. He became Project Leader for slags valorization within the By-Product Research Program and authored 5 publications and was granted a patent on steel slag treatment. In 2011, Gilles joined the European Procurement Organization and the By-Products Sales team, first as Market Analyst. He became Seller for Ferrous-rich ByProducts in 2012, then Lead Seller for Blast-Furnace slag in 2016 til August 2022.

Caroline Alglave is a Senior Analyst focusing on costs in CRU's Aluminium team. Caroline joined the company in April 2016 and has a background in engineering. Caroline works across the whole range of CRU's Aluminium value chain cost models, including bauxite mining, alumina refining, aluminium smelting, aluminium smelter power tariffs, and aluminium rolling costs.

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.

Mr. Igor Levenberg has been active in the Carbon Black business for the last 30 years. Since 1995, he owns and manages MAKROchem Group, a business cluster operating in distribution and logistics of rubber raw materials. With several warehouses and transloading stations located in Europe, North America and scheduled openings in Asia accompanied by own bulk transport infrastructure, MAKROchem is a major player in CB logistics for both producers and consumers of CB globally. In the last several years, MAKROchem has also been sourcing various feedstocks and manufacture Carbon Black in cooperation with its partners.
Mr. Levenberg was born in 1969, holds Master degree in Economics followed by PhD in Chemistry. He is the author of a wide range of scientific publications dedicated to carbon black, with the three most recent books (Carbon Black: from bonfires to gas era, Carbon Black: application and impact on ecosystems, Carbon Black: morphology, properies, production) issues within the last five years.