Overseas trade orders of silicon increased after CNY

SHANGHAI, Mar 17 (SMM) — The Chinese New Year holiday in February affected the domestic trading hours, but silicon metal maintained its upward momentum. After the holiday ended in mid-February, overseas aluminium factories focused on bidding with the orders that had been released before the holiday, high-grade metallurgical-grade silicon transactions soared. On the one hand, only a few companies in Yunnan producing areas that mainly supplied overseas markets resumed production. On the other hand, the funds of silicon plants after the holiday was also more optimistic about the market outlook, and the attitude to increasing prices was more determined when orders were abundant.

With the resumption of domestic downstream work, the transaction volume of some low-grade specifications silicon gradually increased. The widening of the aluminium-silicon price gap and the sharp rise in the prices of organic silicon monomers and polysilicon also lifted up the downstream acceptance of the price increase of silicon metal. The increase in the prices of raw materials such as petroleum coke and electrodes further strengthened the confidence of silicon factories in price increases.

Except for the resumption of production in Xinjiang, domestic supply did not increase much in March. The progress of the power price negotiations on the Nu River in Yunnan will be monitored in the following weeks. According to the overall supply and demand situation, the prices of silicon metal are likely to maintain an upward trend in March.