Chinese prices of manganese ore stayed on the downtrend this week due to the relatively weak demand, with the price of South Africa-origin 36.5% grade Mn ore at North China’s Tianjin port under Mysteel’s assessment losing Yuan 0.8/dmtu on week to Yuan 33.2/dmtu ($4.8/t) including the 13% VAT as of March 16, the lowest since September 13 2022.The further decrease was partly due to the shrinking demand from downstream manganese alloy smelters, as “many smelters in Southwest China’s Guangxi have halted operations to reduce their losses given their increased production costs amid higher electricity prices,” a market watcher in Shanghai said.
Besides, the silicomanganese prices in the physical market kept stable this week, while prices of the ferroalloy in the derivatives market weakened continuously, which also placed some pressure on the domestic manganese ore market, Mysteel Global learned.
As of March 15, the national price of 6517 SiMn was assessed by Mysteel at Yuan 7,289/t including the 13% VAT, the same level from one week earlier. On the same day, the most-traded SiMn futures contract on the Zhengzhou Futures Exchange for May delivery slipped for the fourth working day to close the daytime trading session at Yuan 7,320/t, lower by Yuan 48/t from the settlement price on March 8, the exchange’s data showed.
Some Chinese manganese ore traders prefer to concede somewhat in their offering prices to facilitate sales and to free up cash after noting the lackluster spot trading of the ore, whereas traders who have higher import costs would like to firm their offering prices for the moment to monitor the market changes in the coming term, Mysteel Global noted.
Although manganese alloy smelters in northern China maintained high production so far, it failed to lend too much support to the manganese ore prices given the high-level inventories of this ore at China’s major ports.
As of March 10, total inventories of manganese ore at China’s major ports came in at 6.1 million tonnes, still a very high level though it had emptied for the second week by another 26,000 tonnes from the prior week, according to Mysteel’s latest weekly survey.
Written by Nancy Zheng, zhengmm@mysteel.com
Edited by Alyssa Ren, rentingting@mysteel.com
Note: This article has been written in accordance with an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.
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