European marketers: no antimony offers from Chinese

BEIJING (Asian Meta) 5 Jul 07 – In the passed weekend, most Hunan antimony mines and metal productions have been shut down due to the environmental reason. Some suppliers raised the offers in the domestic market; however, European market participants told Asian Metal that the suppliers are not offering material in Europe now.
A UK trader claimed that he received an offer of 99.65%min standard grade two antimony ingot at USD4,950/t CIF Rotterdam, but the offer was no longer available this Monday, and he had not received any offer of antimony since then.
The source thinks the price now, at around USD5,000-5,100/t CIF Rotterdam, in Europe is not accepted by both consumers and suppliers that consumers are waiting for lower prices and consumers want to sell at higher prices. However, when the demand is as slow as now, the change in supply does not make any difference. “Market will remain quiet.”
An official from a German antimony trioxide consumer is trying to get quotations from his suppliers but find that “the Chinese are reluctant to give an offer now.” He also read the news about what happened in Hunan and he thinks Chinese suppliers are waiting for more news for them to raise the price to the level they desires which is a little difficult, because the consumers are not cooperative.
The official thinks that the price of antimony will only rise when the production will be halt for a long time.
In the past years, there is one news followed another about antimony production or Chinese policies and the Chinese raised the prices each time after the news were released. However, the market is build up on both supply and demand. When there is enough supply and little demand, price will not change easily.
Antimony trioxide price remains at around USD4,650-4,700/t CIF Rotterdam for 99.5%min standard material, but demand is also very slow.