European antimony market moves upwards

BEIJING (Asian Metal) 10 Jan 08 – This week, most market participants come back to office from the New Year holidays, and they find out the antimony metal price increased when they placed orders for raw material.
Asianmetal(English) http://www.asianmetal.com 3XF5 A European trader sold 20t of standard grade-two antimony ingot at around USD5,600/t in warehouse Rotterdam, and he sold two containers at the end of last week at USD5,500/t in warehouse Rotterdam. He takes the price will be in the range of USD5,600-5,800/t in warehouse Rotterdam in the next few weeks before Chinese New Year.
Asianmetal(English) http://www.asianmetal.com 66ID "The Chinese currency appreciation against U.S. dollar is one of reasons that antimony price is moving up," said the source. The source sees more inquiries in the market is another reason for the price to go up. "Some consumers might have thought price could be lower in January so they held back from purchasing in Dec., and they are in the market now but find higher prices."
Asianmetal(English) http://www.asianmetal.com P079 Another trader was shocked when he received the new quotations from China are in the range of USD5,550-5,600t CIF Rotterdam for standard grade-two antimony ingot, which is a USD150-200/t increase compared with the offers he received right before the New Year holiday.
Asianmetal(English) http://www.asianmetal.com 5K18 He also received a few offers in the last several days, and is trying to figure out what he will say to the consumer to let them understand the price had increased. “This is a difficult job; some consumers are more price sensitive than the others, and they always want to dig out the real reason why the price had increased,” the source complained. He takes the price will move a little more, maybe a total of USD100- 200/t, in January and February.