Ferro-tungsten price surging up
2005-02-21 09:12:08 【Print】
BEIJING(Asian Metal) 21-Feb-2005 The current price of ferro-tungsten in China has surged to above $17/kg FOB CMP from around $15.2/kg early this month, on the back of the rocketing tungsten concentrate price.
"The current ferro-tungsten price moves to over $17/kg," a Hunan based producer told Asian Metal today. "Before the holiday, we concluded some contracts in the range of $15.50-16.00/kg," added he, reporting that the current high price is pushed up by rocketing raw material cost, which has moved up to around rmb51000/t, up about rmb3000/t compared with that early this month. The producer claimed that its total production capacity is 6000tpy for both tungsten and moly products.
A northern ferro-tungsten producer quotes the price of $18/kg for the time being. "For the tight domestic supply and the high tungsten concentrate price, ferro-tungsten price would keep at high level in the near future," an official from the producer said, revealing that most of its output in March has been ordered at a price level of around $17.50/kg. Due to the tight supply of raw material, it does not plan to run fully on its 600tpm production capacity for ferro-tungsten.
For the moment, domestic buyers are asking for a price of above $17/kg for ferro-tungsten , and they would not contract under the level," a Shaanxi based producer noted. "While foreign buyers could only bid for less than $17/kg, mainly in the range of $16.8-16.9/kg." The source also added that in the first half of this month, he concluded a batch of ferro-tungsten at the price of $16.70/kg CIF Europe. At present, due to the tight tungsten supply, the producer has not resumed production. "Owing to the current high raw material price, we would not like to take risk purchasing tungsten conc. and are inclined to wait for a while," added he. According to him, its ferro-tungsten outputs in the past few months were less than 100tpm.
