[SMM Antimony spot Weekly report] Customs seized smuggled antimony ingots, antimony prices brewing recovery (2018.08.06 to 2018.08.10)

SMM, August 13, 2018:

The market remained stable at the beginning of the week, but after the news that "3000 tons of antimony ingots were seized by Chinese customs on Thursday, the price of antimony, a foreign media, rose again on Friday, boosting confidence in the domestic market in the future."

Raw materials: due to the face of environmental protection, smelters are still basically shutting down production, coupled with the spot price of antimony ore is not low, antimony ore market in addition to long single cooperation in the overall transaction is less. Antimony oxide powder market situation is basically the same, but also the supply of not many high quotations, but some end customers in the ceramic industry have a rigid demand for antimony oxygen powder, the market transaction is OK.

Antimony ingots: this week, the market is still based on zero single rigid demand procurement, the price is maintained at 2 # high bismuth antimony ingots 50500 yuan / ton, 2 # low bismuth antimony ingots 51000 yuan / ton, 1 # antimony ingots 52000 yuan, 0 # antimony / ton ingots 53000 yuan / ton. After Thursday's "Customs seizure of 3000 tons of smuggled antimony ingots," trading groups began to actively inquire, while antimony oxide manufacturers are still willing to buy, the market mainstream transaction price slightly biased to the SMM antimony price is high, terminal alloy customers are not ready to enter the market.

Antimony trioxide: this week antimony oxide market is still weak operation, but stimulated by the news of antimony ingot quotation has been strong, antimony trioxide quotation began to rise slightly. Taking 99.8% antimony trioxide as an example, the domestic core production enterprises began to quote about 46500 yuan / ton batch shipment. Although regular customers, long single partners have room to negotiate, but the overall transaction price has gradually approached the offer.

According to relevant reports, "in the early morning of 8 August, according to the unified deployment of the Anti-smuggling Bureau of the General Administration, Changsha Customs Anti-smuggling Bureau, Nanning Customs Anti-smuggling Bureau, Guangzhou Customs Anti-smuggling Bureau, Beijing Customs Anti-smuggling Bureau jointly launched a centralized collection operation to crack down on the export of antimony ingots. With the assistance of the Nanjing Customs Anti-smuggling Bureau, local public security departments such as Loudi and Huaihua in Hunan Province, and relevant state security departments, more than 90 police officers have been deployed and divided into 12 action teams in Changsha, Lengshuijiang, Shenzhen, Huaihua, Shaoyang, and other places in Hunan. We arrested 11 criminal suspects, smashed three criminal gangs specializing in smuggling and exporting antimony ingots from the Sino-Vietnamese border, seized a batch of account books, computers, and mobile phones involved in the case, and preliminarily investigated and verified that more than 3000 tons of antimony ingots were involved in the export of antimony ingots, worth 182 million yuan. " The Chinese Customs has finally cracked down on these huge numbers of illegal smuggling channels and safeguarded the legitimate interests of formal production and export enterprises, thus protecting the prices of antimony ingots exported by China from unfair treatment. It also ensures the country's normal tax revenue. Of course, the current summer off season is not over, overseas businessmen have not returned to the market, and domestic downstream demand is weak, the current market warming atmosphere is still brewing.