Antimony trioxide quoted higher

BEIJING (Asian Metal) 22 Dec 06 – Prompted by higher offers of antimony ingot, major antimony trioxide producers raised their quotes slightly late this week in order to cope with the increasing cost, market sources reported to Asian Metal today.
A major Hunan-based smelter, one of the Chinese state-owned antimony products exporting enterprises, raised the export offer to USD4,650/t FOB late this week for its 99.5% antimony trioxide with famous brand, USD50/t up compared to last week.
As most antimony ingot producers in the region continue to enhance offers after the mine accident happened early December, the production cost of antimony trioxide increases accordingly as the smelter has to purchase antimony ingot from the spot market as supplement other than raw materials extracted from its own mine. “That’s the key reason for us to raise offers,” said an official from the smelter.
Meanwhile, another major Yunnan-based antimony trioxide producer, one of the export supplying enterprises for antimony products, raised the offers to RMB38,500/t(USD4,923/t) ex works and 37,500/t(USD4,795/t) ex works for antimony trioxide grading 99.9% and 99.8% respectively, RMB500/t(USD64/t) up from the previous offers.
According to an official from the company, a few deals were concluded at around RMB37,000/t (USD4,731/t) ex works recently. The source also attributed the price adjustment to higher antimony ingot prices.
A producer from Guangdong, however, revealed that both domestic and export antimony trioxide markets are not active. “With the approaching of Christmas, few western buyers are still in the market, so the export market will get quieter in the following two weeks,” said the source, adding that demand from domestic market is also coming slow.
The source revealed that some traders in Guangdong could only gain relatively low prices of around USD4,500-4,550/t FOB for exports, and few deals have been reported over the past two week.