Indian FeV market appears experiencing shortage of material
2010-01-07 09:40:57 【Print】
BEIJING (Asian Metal) 7 Jan 10 – With complaints potential buyers are not getting ferrovanadium material at offered prices of INR620-630/kg (USD26.60-27.10/kg), the market appears to be tight either because of real shortage or current prices are not enough to attract many dealers and producers, according to market sources.
A producer with 20tpm production shared with Asian Metal he had had to stop production of the material because of the inability to source and secure enough vanadium sludge from local suppliers, who because of improvement in technology now make use of the sludge in aluminium production application, leaving many ferrovanadium producers to now rely on the importation of vanadium pentoxide, which is reported to be difficult to get offer of at the moment.
“We are temporarily transiting into trading at the moment and we only reserve our inventory to meet demand from our regular end-user customers,” said the source explaining why many more would have to continue to reply on imported material at over INR630/kg (USD27.10/kg).
From another producer, the high sludge price of INR350/kg is the driving force behind high offers and described the market demand from end-users as steady but quickly added there was no point to offer material at this moment because most bids in the market are in the range of INR600-620/kg V (USD25.80-26.60/kg), of which he is not ready to accept anything below INR635/kg V (USD27.30/kg). The source also confirmed the number of ferrovanadium producers have reduced at the moment and more are going into trading in the material until they could establish new chain of vanadium pentoxide suppliers from Western producers and China at competitive bids.
A trader with some reasonable inventory added he is offering material at INR675/kg V (USD29.00/kg) but could consider bids at INR650/kg V (USD27.90/kg) for spot payment. Asked why the price appeared over the mainstream range, he argued it was on assumption of deals on quantity less than 5t but workable prices could be agreed upon at INR630/kg V (USD27.10/kg) for a single deal of 10t-lots.
