European marketers blame Chinese for antimony substitutes
2006-05-25 09:08:41 【Print】
BEIJING (Asian Metal) 25 May 06 – As antimony market continues to be quiet in Europe, market participants blamed Chinese suppliers for manipulating the market which resulted consumers changing to antimony substitutes.
A Central European consumer told Asian Metal that he is trying to looking for antimony resources others than Chinese. “As the largest antimony supplier in the world, Chinese are using the market position to manipulate the market by raised the price which could result that demand of antimony drop dramatically at the end.”
Taking that a realistic price for antimony ingot would be at USD3,000-3,500/t, the consumer refuses to purchase at higher than USD5,000/t, and the current price of standard antimony ingot is offered at USD5,300-5,400/t CIF Europe.
“Chinese suppliers should realize that they are destroying the antimony market; consumers are changing to other substitutes.” European consumers are always generous when it comes to technology researches and developments; the source believes more effective substitutes will be discovered soon.
A European trader also worried that demand of antimony dropped in the western world. Although it is compulsory to use fire retardant in the textile industry including cloth and carpet, other types fire retardant, such as zinc based products, can be used instead of antimony trioxide, which would lower the demand by large percentage. “Chinese suppliers should not only focus on the profit in the short term because that is short sighted.”
Commenting on the potential harm antimony trioxide can be done in drink bottles, the trader thinks it is out of consideration as long as the government had not make any political reaction of it and this point of view is shared by many others.
