Over the past week, China's manganese alloy market has followed a generally weak trend due to poor demand. Meanwhile, China's ferrosilicon market registered a stable trend during the same period, mainly owing to the expectation that domestic electricity charges will increase early in June.
Product name | Specification | Place of origin | Price (RMB/mt) | Weekly change (RMB/mt) | Price ($/mt) | Weekly change ($/mt) |
Silicon manganese | FeMn65Si17 | Guangxi | 8,250 | -50 | 1,210 | -7 |
Ferrosilicon | FeSi75 | Gansu | 6,600 | - | 968 | - |
In the past week, the market quotations of FeMn65Si17 have been at RMB 8,200-8,400/mt ($1,202-1,232/mt) in the north of China, down RMB 500-1,000/mt ($73-147/mt) week on week, while market quotations of the same material in the southern region have declined to RMB 7,900-8,200/mt ($1,158-1,202/mt), with the lower end declining by RMB 1,000/mt ($147/mt) week on week. At the same time, the mainstream price of FeMn65 has been standing at around RMB 8,400-8,500/mt ($1,231-1,246/mt), down RMB 50-100/mt ($7-15/mt), while export offers of FeMn65Si17 have remained at $1,500-1,550/mt FOB.
During the past week, China's manganese alloy market has maintained its weak trend, with few deals concluded. Due to the relatively sufficient levels of inventory at domestic mills, it is thought that purchase activities may slow down in June. Meanwhile, given the production cuts adopted by some medium- and small-sized mills, the demand for manganese alloys may decline accordingly.
In the past week the ex-factory price of ferrosilicon (75 percent) has remained at RMB 6,500-6,700/mt ($953-982/mt) in northwestern China, unchanged week on week. In addition, export quotations of domestic ferrosilicon (75 percent) have been at $1,380-1400/mt FOB, also stable compared with the previous week.
The Chinese ferrosilicon market has followed a stable trend over the past week, with a wait-and-see approach prevailing. Since China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has requested regional governments to stop offering existing preferential electricity prices to high energy-consumption industries before the deadline on June 10 and to implement a new electricity charge policy as of June 1, in this context most ferrosilicon companies are following a wait-and-see approach, awaiting further developments as regards the electricity price policies. It is expected that the anticipated increase in electricity charges will surely push up the price of ferrosilicon.