Antimony market under pressure

BEIJING (Asian Metal) 24 Jul 07 – Antimony producers are apparently overconfident about the future market with some predicting that the price might hit USD6,000/t. As demand all over the world remains weak, and closed mines and smelters in Hunan are likely to resume production one or two weeks later, antimony market is showing signs of cooling down, and buyers reported more unsolicited offers from producers recently.
A Guangdong-based trader revealed that no export deals were concluded during the past two weeks. “On the one hand, most Chinese smelters held back from offering during the past two weeks, expecting the market to increase further; on the other hand, many foreign customers are out for holidays and the remaining ones are not ready to accept the increased offers as high as USD5,500-5,600/t CIF Rotterdam,” the source explained.
The source revealed that some smelters began making unsolicited offers early this week as they found it hard to drive the price up further and some even lack confidence holding the price stable at the current level. “Nevertheless, even if we purchase at RMB40,000/t (USD5,284/t) ex works and sell at USD5,600/t FOB, we still cannot make any profit. So we have no plan to purchase for now,” said the source, adding that antimony ingot is being offered at RMB40,500-41,000/t (USD5,350-5,416/t) ex works, about RMB500/t (USD66/t) lower than that of last week.
Another trader from Hunan confirmed that the antimony market is under pressure of dropping as it lacks support of strong demand. According to the source, most closed smelters in Hunan have certain quantities of stocks on hand before they shut down at the end of June, and producers in other regions such as Yunnan, Guangxi and Guizhou mostly operate normally. Coupled with continued weak demand, deals were not rolling in as producers had expected, though the price shifted up to a level above RMB40,000/t (USD5,284/t) ex works. “In fact, only limited deals were concluded at prices above RMB40,000/t (USD5,284/t) ex work, and consumers were not in a rush to buy as they seemed to be confident that the market would not be pushed higher,” said
the source.
With production in Hunan still not return to normal, producers will try their best to prevent the price from falling. However, there is little possibility for the price to rise in the short term.