With contract prices rising by around 6cents/lb for all third quarter contract volumes, buying activity for high carbon ferrochrome material started to slow in July in the lead up to the European holiday period. For the month as a whole, spot prices averaged around 49cents/lb on a delivered basis, thereby achieving the same level as in the previous month. However, despite this stabilisation in the average spot price, anecdotal evidence suggests that depending on both order volume and customer location prices have varied between 44-52cents/lb on a delivered basis. With buying activity likely to slow further over the next month we anticipate that further increases in spot prices will not be obtained during this period. However, owing to the critically low stock levels, which we estimate accounted for around seven weeks of consumption in the western world at the start of the third quarter, we do not expect that there will be a significant deterioration in price either.
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