After a continuous rise for half a year, domestic tungsten prices stopped rising and began to fall last week.
Raw Material Side: Some traders conducted destocking operations in mid-to-late June, further tightening the supply of tungsten concentrates in the market. Last week, some traders planned to restock, but due to the consumption of low-price sources, it was difficult to find supplies, resulting in relatively quiet overall transactions.
Smelting Side: The current round of environmental inspections has not yet ended, and some APT smelters in major production areas have not fully resumed production. Additionally, due to the continued price inversion, smelters have been less proactive in restocking, leading to low APT social inventory and firm prices. As of the end of last week, mainstream APT negotiations were around 230,000-231,000 yuan/mt, with few actual transactions.
Consumption Side: Due to the continuous rise in raw material prices, downstream consumption did not improve, and the sales-based procurement model remains mainstream. The demand pressure resulted in tungsten powder transaction prices generally lower than online prices.
Analysis: Supported by the tight supply situation in the tungsten raw material market and the relatively stable demand in the tungsten end-user market, the overall downward space for tungsten prices is relatively limited.
SMM expects that domestic tungsten prices will narrowly fluctuate at high levels in early June, with limited room for both rise and fall.
