Tungsten Concentrate Was in Short Supply Again

Analysis of latest tungsten market in China from Chinatungsten Online: Tungsten concentrate was in short supply again from yesterday, and the purchase of it in the mainstream smelters also became tense. Tungsten concentrate market is more active, and products price tends to be recovered, so some enterprises start to expect the rally in price again.

Last week, with the increase of processing ingredients prices, mainstream APT smelters stated to raise processing costs. Taking the coefficient of processing and processing fee of 45 tungsten ore for smelting as an example, the coefficient of processing is 1.435, and processing fee is RMB 13,500/tonne. The current processing fee rises by RMB 2,000 compared with the beginning the 2017, and up RMB 1,000/tonne compared with September.

The shortage in tungsten concentrate has not spread yet, which only exists in the mainstream areas. There are large amount of low grade scheelite purchased by smelter. The transaction price stands at RMB 1.37/kilogram, converting to the tax trading RMB 97,000/tonne and RMB 105,000/tonne of 65% wolframite concentrate.

APT market tends to be stable now. With the increase of processing fee and great difficulty in purchasing tungsten concentrate, it is hard to purchase the APT below RMB 160,000/tonne. The quotation in mainstream areas comes back to the RMB 160,000/tonne. But most smelters have limited spot goods, only order products.

Taken together, with the influence of environmental protection and depressing trading volume, tungsten market is weak in both supply and demand. And the environmental protection reducing production will have greater effect on the latter market when the winter is approaching. As a result, there will be substantial shrinkage in production, in line with the expectation of demand wanes, coupled with the mentality of buying up not buying down, the tungsten market will be under great pressure.

Price of tungsten products on Oct. 26, 2017

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