As predicted earlier this year, the market for Chinese fluorspar has continued to tighten and pricing has been edging slowly upwards. Remaining export licences are few. Pacific freight rates are high, and the 2003 export allocation is only 850,000 tonnes; a 15 percent reduction from the 2002 total of 1m. tonnes. Because of these compounding factors, 130-138 dollars/tonne is now a more accurate pricing range for Chinese filtercake acidspar, both CIF Rotterdam and CIF US Gulf. This is an increase from the previously published level of 128-135 dollars/tonne. Chinese metspar prices are only 3 dollars/tonne lower than the acidspar range at 127-135 dollars/tonne CIF Rotterdam. Mexican acidspar prices remain at 141-150 dollars/tonne (FOB Mexico, filtercake, As <5ppm) and 100-125 dollars/tonne for filtercake product on an FOB Tampico basis.
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