In Europe, ferro-silicon suppliers will be targeting ?,?1,600 per tonne in the next few weeks after the market hit ?,?1,550 ($1,828) per tonne on Friday March 26 for the first time since April 2018 in a recent resumption of a longer-term uptrend since last August when prices were as low as ?,?860 per tonne, sources said.
Producers are almost all sold out for deliveries between April and June and are offering alloy near the current price peak, with one producer reporting a deal for 100 tonnes of standard grade at ?,?1,500 per tonne on a fca (free on truck) basis, Fastmarkets was told."We're selling standard-grade ferro-silicon around ?,?1,500 per tonne ddp," one supplier in Europe said. "There's a shortage of material in Europe because Brazil and Malaysia are postponing export deliveries while there is difficulty getting containers, which are currently priced around $2,500 per container. There's an overall shortage of containers in the ports plus queues to load and unload anything, including...