The domestic ferro-silicon market in China has been steady in the past week, consolidating a small recovery made the week before, amid low-key trading. In Europe, ferro-silicon prices fell to lows last seen in July 2017 when traders cut their offer prices to encourage buying interest amid slow demand.
Chinese market holds up with supplies reduced European suppliers cut offer prices on slow demand US market steady but outlook weak.Domestic Chinese ferro-silicon prices maintained their levels over the week ended Tuesday January 29 despite muted demand and relatively inactive trading."Prices are not falling because there are not many deals now," a trader said.Fastmarkets' latest assessment of the free market Chinese ferro-silicon ex-works price, basis 75% Si, was 6,300-6,400 yuan ($933-948) per tonne on January 25."Supply has reduced considerably, but so has demand," a major producer said.Several smaller ferro-silicon producers have stopped production for an unspecified length of time, with some of them doing maintenance work at their plants. Their stoppages were intended to allow those companies to avoid incurring major losses because of the weak domestic prices.There was market speculation that some of the idled ferro-silicon producers would restart operations in April. Breakeven costs were around 6,000 yuan...