Antimony marching higher but faces buyer resistance

摘要

Domestic antimony prices are on the rise as traders cite higher replacement costs for Chinese material. Most spot U.S. antimony transactions in the past week were in a range of $16,500 to $16,700 per tonne, sources said, with one trader reporting a sale of several hundred tonnes at as high as $17,400 per tonne. The $16,500- to $17,400-per-tonne transaction range is up from $15,900 to $16,500 in mid-March and a far cry from the $6,600-to-$6,750 spread a year ago. The rising prices are the result of higher replacement costs from China, where production was said to have slowed following the temporary shutdown of some antimony smelters by Chinese environmental authorities (AMM, March 9).