A decline in output from the automotive market in Europe has negatively affected demand in the vanadium and ferro-chrome markets, with prices for both materials falling to multi-month lows.
From January to April 2019, demand for new cars in the European Union decreased by 2.6% year on year to 5.3 million units registered in total, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA).Over the first four months of this year, new car registrations declined by 4.6% in Italy, by 4.5% in Spain and by 2.7% in the UK year on year, while registrations in the German and French markets remained almost flat.The lack of demand in Europe has been the biggest drag on the region's vanadium prices since the beginning of the year, with lower car production and sales globally already negatively affecting Russian vanadium producer Evraz's vanadium product sales in the first quarter of the year. The price of ferro-vanadium in Europe has fallen by more than 70% from the all-time high of $126-128 per kg reached in November last year to its lowest...