The Chinese antimony price downtrend entered its third consecutive week amid persistently thin buying interest from the country's downstream market in the latest assessment period ended Wednesday March 13.
Fastmarkets assessed the price of MMTA standard-grade II antimony, delivered duty-paid in China, at 46,000-46,500 yuan ($6,844-6,918) per tonne on Wednesday, down by 2.6% from 47,000-48,000 yuan per tonne in the prior week. Several hundred tonnes of antimony ingot were reported to have been concluded at the price range of 46,000-46,500 yuan per tonne in the week. Some Chinese antimony suppliers cut their prices to encourage sales last week in an effort to generate cash and mitigate financial strain. "It's still not easy to borrow money from banks currently. And that's why some [antimony ingot] producers will have to lower their prices again to promote sales in an attempt to obtain cash to ease their financial stress," a Chinese market participant said. Meanwhile, many Chinese antimony consumers have remained cautious about their procurement volumes,...