Chinese antimony ingot concluded on higher prices
2005-02-28 15:03:23 【Print】
BEIJING(Asian Metal)28-Feb-2005 When most market participants are still puzzled about the current antimony market, as they just came back from the holiday, a Hunan based producer has concluded a batch of antimony ingot at rmb25800/t in the recent few days, according to a senior official from the producer, which has a 2500tpy production capacity for antimony ingot.
"Right now our quotation for antimony ingot is rmb25800/t, which has no room to be discounted," the official claimed, revealing that for the time being, it received many enquiries from buyers, most of which offered prices of around rmb25000/t. "We would not sell on the level under rmb25800/t, for our current small stocks and the expected higher price," said he, adding that the batch of around 60 tonnes antimony ingot, contracted a few days ago, was sold to one of his stable customers, otherwise it would not supply that large volume at present. Accordng to the official, its price usually has rmb500-800/t premium over other local producers.
The producer, which has been under equipment maintenance since the end of last December, would resume production in the mid of this March.
All of its raw material demand is met by its own mine, so the current tight supply of antimony ore influences its production slightly. "The mine's output can just meet our consumption, so we do not sell it," he said
As for its antimony trioxide production, the official said for the strong competition most of its production lines were stopped two years ago, with only one left. Whereas he noted the current antimony trioxide price in the local market is not as well as that in other places, with rmb21000-22000/t for 99.8% and rmb20000-21000/t for 99.5%. "I am not sure whether the products tally with the standards producers declared, but many suppliers said recently they sold the products in those ranges," added he. The current prevailing price for antimony trioxide is around rmb23000/t, according to Asian Metal's assessment.
Just in this afternoon, Asian Metal was informed that the Hunan based producer sold the another four wagons with prices at around rmb25800/t. Meanwhile, according to the source, many buyers want to purchase more even on that high level, but no stocks are left for them.
However, some traders in South China claimed opposite market trend for antimony. "In the past several days we received less enquiries from overseas buyers. The only few that we received were less than $3000/t CIF," said a major trader. According to him, he even can not secure a price of around usd3050/t CIF Europe while before the holiday, he delivered a batch to Europe at $3150/t CIF. A second trader even declared he had received an offer from a domestic supplier at rmb24400/t.
