European participants confused in antimony market
2005-06-24 15:06:19 【Print】
BEIJING (AsianMetal) 24 Jun 05 - While some antimony consumers believe the price of antimony will continue to climb, others think the price is about time to drop.
“This is not a normal year,” said a Spanish antimony trioxide producer. He just bought some antimony ingot for USD3,600/t ex warehouse yesterday. “This price is crazy. Normally, the price starts to drop in June, but now is already near the end of June, and we do not see any clue that the price would follow the pattern.”
A Belgium consumer told Asian Metal: “We just bought some from Hong Kong with the price at USD3,450/t CIF because we require lower lead and arsenic content, but it was USD3,400/t last week.”
This consumer wishes the price would drop as in other years. The market is less active for weak demand, but the supply is short as well. She does not know what is going to happen.
While most people lost direction, a few have different understandings.
A major Belgium consumer of antimony ingot claimed the CIF Rotterdam price is already around USD3,600/t yesterday and believed the price would continue to go up.
A UK trader told Asina Metal that he just purchased some antimony ingot from China at a price of around USD3,450/t CIF Europe. As for the prices in warehouse Rotterdam, he believed that the mainstream ones should be around USD3,500/t.
The trader predicted that the antimony market may continue to firm up.
However, a German trader holds opposite opinion, “There is less inquire for antimony, and those antimony trioxide producers are reducing their production or even closed for the summer holiday. I think the price is going to drop about USD100 during the summer holiday.”
This trader bought a small amount of antimony from spot-market with the price at USD3,650/t last week.
