Seaborne manganese ore prices dropped further on Friday April 16, sparking buying interest due to the erosion of the premium over portside prices.
Major suppliers of seaborne material reduced their offers to match the prices for cargoes already in Chinese ports.
Fastmarkets'
manganese ore index 37% Mn, cif Tianjin, dropped by 22 cents to $4.27 per dry metric tonne unit (dmtu) on April 16.
The corresponding index for
manganese ore 44% Mn, cif Tianjin, went down by 28 cents to $4.77 per dmtu on the same day.
Miners offering at high prices in recent weeks had encountered strong resistance from buyers who said they had no incentive to buy when seaborne prices were at a large premium to portside prices.
Buyers were keen to accept the new lower offers and accepted that miners were unlikely to reduce their prices further, due to the high freight rates over the past two months.
"Buyers are happy to...