Major Korean indium buyer broke contracts
2005-03-03 09:18:01 【Print】
BEIJING(Asian Metal) 3-Mar-2005 Some Chinese indium producers reported to Asian Metal that one of the major indium buyers in South Korea broke a series of contracts with quite several major Chinese suppliers. The total quantity was believed to be as large as 5tpm.
“We began negotiation with the buyer from South Korea at the beginning of last December. And late that month we signed a contract to sell 1tpm our 4N5 indium for one year. The price was settled at the average of MB's high quotations over Q/P plus $2/kg CIF Incheon Interational Airport. While out of our expect, the company broke it early this January. Although we tried many ways to push it to carry out the contacts, it refused “complained a source from a Hunan based smelter.
He continued, “The company once informed us that due to terribly bad LCD market, it finally decided to cut and decrease its import quantity of indium during the 1st half of 2005. But the contract break wasted a great amount of our capital, which is used to enlarge our production capacity from 25tpy to about 60tpy. ”
Another Guangdong based smelter who is also one of the parties suffered from the contract breach confirmed the matter.“We cannot believe that such a leading LCD producer would break its contracts in so short time. Luckily, the price of indium still keeps at high level; otherwise, it would be a great hit on us, “said the source.
According to the source, the contract quantity of the smelter with the Korean buyer was 0.5tpm. The smelter has a production capacity for indium 25tpy.
Asian Metal have tried several times to contact the Korean buyer, but failed to get the person who is in charge of the business.
