Fastmarkets plans to offer new manganese ore indices on a free-on-truck (fot) basis for both 37% and 44% material, normalized to the port of Tianjin, in an effort to deepen its coverage of the manganese market.
The process to introduce the new indices has been initiated in response to demand from the market for stand-alone fot data.Interest in an independent port price has grown due to a greater number of and more diverse data providers in China, as well as improved liquidity in the Chinese port market. The port price initiative is currently in the consultation phase - the pricing notice can be viewed here.Any response to the consultation would be taken into account by January 5, 2019.If introduced, the new port price indices would complement Fastmarkets' current indices for 37% and 44% cif Tianjin, China, and the downstream fob Port Elizabeth price, which will be unchanged by the development.Why fot and cif should be separateData on an fot basis had been included in Fastmarkets' 44% cif index because the port data was found to correlate to the seaborne price.But in 2016 the different market fundamentals of cif and fot showed a split...