WEEK IN REVIEW: China leads in regional market trends

Regional ferro-alloy markets diverged this week as reduced activity at steel mills dampened spot buying in Europe while and demand for ferro-manganese in North America remained active.
Higher LME nickel prices and physical premiums seen in Europe mid-week have failed to lift prices of bulk alloys or ferro-molybdenum, which remain vulnerable to the summer slowdown in buying by steel mills.
But in China, manganese and silicon ferro-alloy prices headed up on rising input costs and tightening supply, prompting higher offers in the dollar-denominated export markets that are also seeing the impact of the dollar’s falling value against the Chinese yuan.
China’s ferro-alloy output fell year on year in June for the third month running, to 3.13mnt National Bureau of Statistics data showed, while the country’s crude steel output hit a record 73.23mn t last month. But ferro-alloy production increased by 240,000t in June compared with May this year^ when environmental inspections took part across mines and smelters in the country.
The impact of environmental inspections, alongside seasonal maintenance, continue to affect primary vanadium production in China, and this is translating into higher prices for all vanadium units both inside the country and in export markets.
China is also looking to ban, on environmental grounds, imports of vanadium slag, of which it is the largest importer, which could strangle off a vital source of raw material for domestic manufacture of vanadium pentoxide. The shortage and rising cost of primary raw materials has already sent vanadium alloy manufacturers, including in China, scrambling for vanadium scrap units.
In China, commodity grade min 98pc vanadium pentoxide flake was assessed at Yn102,000-107,000/t this …
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Source: Metal Pages