According to SMM survey, China antimony ingot (including antimony ingot, converted crude antimony, cathode antimony, etc.) output in October was 6994.3 mt, down 6.36% MoM. Some market participants said that due to various reasons such as domestic mines’ reluctance to sell and difficulty for imported antimony ore to enter China smoothly in the future amid geopolitical issues, the shortage of antimony raw material will persist. Recently, Russia's export tariffs on commodities including platinum group metals has triggered various speculations in the precious metals industry. There is currently a heated discussion on whether Russian gold-antimony ore exports to China will be affected in the future. Since the second half of the year, domestic imports of other antimony ores and concentrates have shown a decreasing trend compared with the first half of the year. It remains to be seen whether the imports of other antimony ores and concentrates will increase in the fourth quarter. Especially with the strengthing of gold prices since the second half of the year and the market generally continuing to be optimistic about future gold prices, many market players may pay far more attention to gold than the by-product antimony.
SMM predicted that China’s antimony ingot production in November will continue to fall amid tight ore supply.
