European antimony market firms slightly

BEIJING (Asian Metal) 6 Oct 06 – When Chinese suppliers are absent from the market, European dealers reported to Asian Metal that they received few offers with higher prices. Moreover, a few dealers claimed they had received more inquiries lately, and the price of antimony rose slight this week.
A Central European trader booked several containers of low bismuth antimony ingot before the end of last week at USD5,300/t CIF Rotterdam, and the material will be delivered next week. He revealed to Asian Metal that he only received two offers of the standard antimony ingot at USD5,280/t and USD5,300/t CIF Rotterdam respectively, and the price of the same material was below USD5,200/t last week. “Therefore, I think USD5,300/t for low bismuth material is a good price now.”
The trader expects the price to go up further in the coming month, “There are some inquiries this week, and with no Chinese in the market, price is about USD100/t higher than the passed week.” He takes that price would go up back to the level of USD5,500/t in warehouse Rotterdam later this year. “The old contracts still have export rebate in consideration, but after December, we would witness a price jump as the new tax policy will apply to both new and old contracts.
A few European traders agreed with the above source that price is firmer to USD5,300-5,400/t in warehouse Rotterdam for the low bismuth antimony ingot and there are some consumers back to the market this week. They take that the consumers had not bought since quite a long time, and not much stock has been left for the productions now.