Weekly Review of imported Chromium Ore on May 29, 2020

This week, although the price of imported chromium ore rose again in mainstream stainless steel factories, very few miners entered the stage of closing the market again without quotation.

As of Friday, 40% of the South African concentrate was quoted for 32 Mel 35 yuan / tonnage, while the outer disk was 170 Mel US $175 / tonnage; 38% of the raw mine was quoted at 34 Mui 38 yuan / tonnage, and the outer disk price was 170 Mel 175 / tonne, with weekly price increases of about 8% both inside and outside.

At present, the price of ferrochromium downstream is high, and the manufacturers are willing to sell, but they hold a wait-and-see attitude towards upstream procurement for two reasons: first, whether stainless steel production will continue to be high in June, and whether stainless steel plants that have not yet invited bids will suppress prices due to output problems; second, the mine end will temporarily reduce supply, and the market is bound to recover, and now high mineral prices mean that future high-cost production is likely to lose money.

Although on May 24, South African time, South African President Ramafosa announced in a national speech on the current new coronavirus epidemic in South Africa that the national blockade level in South Africa had been lowered from level 4 to level 3 from June 1. With regard to mining, the President mentioned in his speech that other sectors that had been opened first, such as agriculture and forestry, utilities, health services, food production and the manufacture of sanitary products, would remain fully open; all manufacturing, mining, construction, financial services, professional and commercial services, information technology, communications, government services and media services were reopened one after another from 1 June.

However, the current chromium ore inventory situation in Chinese ports continues to decline, but after June 1, supply in South Africa resumes, and the 40-day shipping date to China means that the domestic supply of chromium ore will recover significantly in July, without other major positive support. at that time, the risk of falling mineral prices is higher.