[Ferro-alloys.com] Several large ferrosilicon furnaces came on stream in September and October in China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and the local government had offered preferential electricity prices. This resulted in the improvement of overall operation rate of local ferrosilicon industry and the mounting of spot materials. However, the steel mill as the number one consumer remained steady demand for ferrosilicon, thus forcing ferrosilicon producers to gradually lower their offers.

The domestic market was such, but the export market was covered by another layer of dark cloud. As the major Chinese ferrosilicon exporters said, smuggled ferrosilicon still had influence over the price of legally exported materials. Further, there were some forms of disguises such as being disguised as no export duty commodity which looks similar ( silicon metal, manganese metal and silicon carbide); being disguised as low-priced ferro-silicon; being disguised as low duty commodity which looks similar and whose export duty rate is 20%. In addition, the Malaysian ferrosilicon projects invested by Japan ferrosilicon consumers had seen first batch of ferrosilicon but with 60-65% of Si and Japan steel mills rejected the materials, taking a wait-and-see attitude towards its later products.

• [Editor:Phillip.Feng]