The market trend of import of ferroalloy as of 12 September 2014 is as follows.

<> Silicon Metal = The market in China continued to rise after rebounding in mid-August, and now rose by CNY400 - CNY600 per ton from the end of August. Albeit some are expecting conversion of products into cash before China National Day (1st to 7th of October), many of market watchers think the occurrence of conversion of products into cash will be extremely slim because of a strong anticipation of high price.

The increase range of the export price to Japan is bigger than that of domestic price in China because the trading firms in China sell the products in small quantity form the inventory and insist a high price. The current situation is offers for futures products in the latter half of October and November can't be obtained. The domestic sales price in Japan is up by around US$130 from the end of August.

<> Ferro-silicon = In China, the increased demand has made the market for ferro-silicon picked up slightly. However, many of market watchers are negative in that the market will continue rising, and anticipate the upward movement to stop shortly.

The quantity of roundabout products via a third country distributed in Japan has been dwindling, but plural sellers have still won a bid in the tenders floated by electric furnace mills at a low price. Because of that, the hike of domestic price can't be reflected in the price of regularly exported products, and the contract price has remained unchanged since the end of August.

As aforementioned, Chinese cheap products via a third country have continued to be scarce. After the roundabout products via Vietnam sharply decreased during March to April, various measures have been tried such as the export by being disguised as commodities whose export duty is naught and the tax evasion for minimum export price portion by being disguised as low-grade products, and albeit not many, this products seem to have been distributed in the markets in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

The trade of Russian ferro-silicon is thin in the Japanese domestic market, and the price has had no change and continued to remain flat.

<> Silico Manganese = Although some of Indian producers tried to increase a price for the reason of the increase in the royalty on domestic manganese ore (from 4.2% to 5%), they gave up the price increase and the offer price remained unchanged from the previous time because it is not decided yet when the increase in the royalty will be enforced and the domestic manganese ore is not used for export-oriented silico manganese. On the other hand, in Japan, the recovery of consumption was not a full scale, and the contract price remained unchanged.

In the Chinese market for ferro-silicon, the price rebounded a bit in the end of August, but again dropped back by around CNY100 per ton due to customers' low purchase desire. It is equivalent to US$15 in the U.S. currency.

The situation of being almost no contract meant for Japan has continued.

<> Charge Chrome = As to the benchmark price of South African charge chrome, the negotiation for the period from October to December is anticipated to start in mid-September. Although the recovery of consumption in Europe is expected as the summer vacation was over, the factors to push through the demand for the hike of benchmark price are scarce because of the termination of application of comparatively high electricity rate for the winter season in South Africa and the resumption of supply of UG2 ore, and this time's negotiation seems to get prolonged. For a reference, the situation of no deal being struck on spot goods has still continued.

<> Low-carbon Ferro-chrome = While the producers of low-carbon ferro-chrome in Japan have still continued a full-scale operation, the demand has been steadily going up and currently, the feeling of tight supply of imported products has come up. For that reason, the price of products to be shipped by the end of this month has been raised by US Cents 2 per lb. As to the products to be shipped after October, as the negotiation takes place based on the regular price for the period from October to December, the offer has yet to be made from a shipper. The negotiation on the regular price for the period from October to December is anticipated to start after September 16.

 

• [Editor:Sophie]