China: Silico manganese prices edge down on higher output

Chinese silicomanganese (SiMn) prices struggled to stay firm over the past week, with the national price of 6517 SiMn under Mysteel's assessment sliding to Yuan 6,490/tonne ($898/t) including the 13% VAT as of June 25, losing another Yuan 36/t from that on June 16 and refreshing the lowest since December 24 2020.

Transactions in the physical market were not so active, Mysteel Global learned, as buyers of high-priced SiMn products were hard to find and this put more pressure on domestic prices.

China's SiMn output stayed high over the past week. Over June 16-22, daily output among the 121 domestic smelters under Mysteel's regular survey registered 32,019 tonnes/day, inching down by 5 t/d on week. The 121 sampled smelters host 94% of the country's SiMn smelting capacity.

Smelters of the ferroalloy in northern China kept their production high, as they could still gain healthy profit margins on sales despite the decrease in SiMn prices. Mysteel's latest survey showed that over the past week SiMn smelters in northern China could gain Yuan 207/t on SiMn sales thanks to their relatively lower smelting costs.

SiMn inventories held by the 63 domestic smelters under Mysteel's bi-weekly survey emptied further to 257,000 tonnes as of June 22, down another 8,500 tonnes from two weeks earlier. These smelters host about 80% of domestic SiMn smelting capacity.

Demand for SiMn from steel producers is expected to keep stable for now as their production of hot metal has recovered somewhat, thanks to the improvement in their profit margins. SiMn prices are unlikely to see any significant fall in the near term.

Meanwhile, China's manganese ore prices kept stable over the past week, supported by domestic traders' high import costs, with the price of South Africa-origin 36.5% grade Mn ore at North China's Tianjin port staying at Yuan 31/dmtu including the 13% VAT as of June 25, unchanged since June 16, according to Mysteel's assessment.

Note: This article has been written in accordance with an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.