Chinese ferro-silicon prices were unchanged on Friday February 23, with suppliers awaiting the return of consumers after the Lunar New Year holiday, while the European and US markets are pausing for quarterly delivery talks to discover the state of availability and demand in the next few months.
Chinese market awaits consumers' return Chinese trading reduced to inter-merchant activity Europe quiet in the run-up to contract negotiations US tightness seen holding and price supportive Chinese domestic ferro-silicon prices were unchanged week on week, according to sources who had just come back from their week-long festive holidays. Metal Bulletin assessed Chinese domestic spot ferro-silicon (basis 75% silicon) prices at 7,400-8,400 yuan ($1,174-1,332) per tonne on Friday. Steel mills had not yet returned fully from their holidays by Friday and trading has been slow, market participants told Metal Bulletin. "Traders are taking advantage of this slow trading period to buy ferro-silicon and [attempt to] sell it at higher prices once the steel mills start buying alloys to restart their operations," a producer said. The most-traded ferro-silicon contract price on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange settled at 6,786 yuan per tonne on Friday, compared with 6,639 yuan per tonne on February 9....