Date: Nov 27, 2018
Prices for ferro-vanadium and vanadium pentoxide from China slipped in the week ended Friday November 23 after sellers cut their export offers amid a lull in consumer buying and hesitance to purchasing at high levels.
European prices held at all-time highs, despite talk of cheaper numbers, with sellers so far under no pressure to cut their offers.
- Chinese vanadium prices tick down on bearish market sentiment
- European prices hold but talk of cheaper business puts buyers’ sights on possible move lower
- Sellers outside China so far resisting pressure to cut offer prices
Export prices for Chinese ferro-vanadium moved lower last week after remaining unchanged at $130-140 per kg for five consecutive weeks, tracking bearish market sentiment prevailing in the country’s domestic market.
Fastmarkets’ price assessment for ferro-vanadium, fob China, fell to $130-135 per kg on Thursday, down 1.9% from a week earlier.
While no export deals were reported over the past week, some Chinese traders have shown a willingness to encourage deals by cutting their offer prices after noticing that the domestic market has been under the downward pressure because of thinning buying interest from downstream buyers.
“We offered [ferro-vanadium] at $130-135 per kg this week,” one trader, who had previously offered at $140, said.
The weakening Chinese domestic vanadium market over the past two weeks has made export offers easier to come by amid fears domestic prices will no longer be as favorable as before or could lose their theoretical premium should local prices soften further over the following days, sources in China said.
“We have been closely watching the European price movement recently: if the [ferro-vanadium] prices in the European market continue to rise, the price difference will be further narrowed and foreign buyers might come to us to place orders,” a second trader said.
