Tungsten prices continue rising
2005-04-11 11:46:28 【Print】
BEIJING (Asian Metal) 11 Apr 05 - Industry participants thought that this week would be a decisive period for the tungsten market trend, while today, a major tungsten APT smelter further raised its sale price from RMB160,000/t to RMB170,000/t, a close source reported to Asian Metal.
"We quote RMB170,000/t today, but the acceptable ones should be not less than RMB168,000/t, but later last week, we quoted RMB160,000/t," a senior sales manager of a major tungsten APT smelter in Jiangxi Province said.
The manager thought that, although the period is very sensitive for the tungsten market, tungsten prices would continue to firm up. "Tungsten conc prices also rose a little compared with last week, to current over RMB105,000/t, but last week, it was in a range of RMB100,000-105,000/t," said the source.
With 5000tpy production capacity for tungsten APT, the smelter is now running 300-400tpm, half of which are sold domestically, with remaining exported by Jiangxi Rare Metals and Rare Earth Tungsten Group Corp. mainly by long-term contracts.
The smelter did not deal with spot business recently, but the manager thought that the current export prices for spot market if any should be over USD185/mtu.
According to the source, the rumor that China National Stockpile Bureau plans to sell its around 3,000t tungsten conc hit the market prices down on 28-29 Mar., but now the market has again recovered confidence.
