China Tungsten Price Remained Weak in April on Low Trading Activity

Details: Category: Tungsten's News; Published on Sunday, 05 May 2019 18:37

Analysis of latest tungsten market from Chinatungsten Online

China tungsten prices remained weak adjustment before the holiday of May Day due to low trading activity, quiet fundamental side and deadlocked supply and demand. The market now is caught in wait-and-see atmosphere as market participants wait for the next move in May.

The main factors affecting the China tungsten market are as following:

The environmental inspection continued to standardize the industry order and changed the industrial supply and demand pattern. According to the National Ecological Environmental Protection Work Conference held in January, the second round of central environmental protection inspectors is about to start. China will complete this new round of inspection and “look back” in four years, focusing on pollution prevention and control and high-quality development.

The consumption of terminal manufacturing industry was not active, and the demand side of the tungsten industry was under pressure. Downstream alloy companies expressed that the new orders were small, and the raw materials were purchased at low-level enquiries. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, domestic GDP growth rate was 6.4% in the first quarter, which was unchanged from the previous month and fell 0.4% year-on-year. Manufacturing investment growth fell from 4.5% at the end of last year to 4.6%.

Russia plans to ban the export of non-ferrous metal ores and concentrates, as well as precious metal scraps from May 1 to October 31, which will affect nearly 14% of China's tungsten concentrate imports. The data shows that the total amount of tungsten ore and concentrates imported from overseas in China was 6,658.023 tons in 2018, of which 913.468 tons were imported from the Russian Federation, accounting for 13.72% of the total imports.

The news that Fanya Metal's 34.64 tons of indium ingots were successfully auctioned causing the speculative market price to be significantly impacted. It also caused tungsten smelting enterprises’ worry about the nearly 30,000 tons of APT inventories in Fanya. The imbalanced supply and demand was further amplified, and downstream manufacturers and traders were caught in heavy wait-and-see atmosphere.

Prices of tungsten products on May 5, 2019

China tungsten prices image