GLOBAL VANADIUM WRAP: Ferro-vanadium, pentoxide prices fall again on sluggish demand
Date: Mar 19, 2019
The Chinese and European ferro-vanadium markets continued their downward trends last week amid sluggish demand, Fastmarkets heard on Monday March 18.
- Chinese ferro-vanadium, pentoxide markets soften on lack of buying appetite
- Aggressive offers in Europe continue to push ferro-vanadium market down
- European pentoxide market softens on weak demand
- Poor trading in US ferro-vanadium market.
The Chinese ferro-vanadium export price continued to soften over the past week amid thin inquiries from abroad and weakened market sentiment domestically.
Fastmarkets’ assessment of the export price for ferro-vanadium, min 78%, fob China, was $68-72 per kg on March 14, down by 6.0% from $73-76 per kg a week earlier.
Chinese ferro-vanadium exporters lowered their offer prices in response to the fall in the European market, and in an attempt to attract buying appetite from abroad, market sources said.
“We originally offered [material for sale] at around $73 per kg earlier this week but then adjusted our price [downward] to $71 per kg after noticing a drop in the international market,” a Chinese ferro-vanadium exporter told Fastmarkets. “Even at the current price, we are not sure whether we will be able to conclude a deal. Demand is just so weak.”
The continued dip in the European ferro-vanadium price has undermined the sentiment in the Chinese export market, arousing concern among Chinese ferro-vanadium exporters about whether the price will continue to fall in the coming weeks.
A number of Chinese market participants expected the ferro-vanadium export price to drop to $60-65 per kg and then slowly to rebound.
Elsewhere, some Chinese ferro-vanadium producers, which had halted their production amid declining prices late last year and planned at the beginning of this year to gradually resume production in March, have now decided to postpone their production restart dates amid the persistent price dip and the sluggish demand, market sources said.
China’s domestic ferro-vanadium prices also lost momentum last week despite a few tenders being released by the country’s steel mills.
