Comprehensive foreign media reported on April 27 that due to the impact of currency devaluation and the epidemic, European manganese market participants are monitoring the potential chain reaction of China’s Manganese Market to predict the near and medium-term price direction in Europe.
The impact of the epidemic has put pressure on the fundamentals. Manganese tablets further pushed down the price after a sharp decline last month. The sharp decline of the RMB against the US dollar has exacerbated this situation.
The weak domestic demand for China’s 200 series stainless steel pushed this seriously inflated market into a downward track from the end of February to the beginning of April, after which the price basically stabilized.
AGUS estimated yesterday that the price of Rotterdam manganese tablets was US $3200-3400 per ton, down US $50 from April 21, but roughly the same as in previous weeks.
Market participants said that as China’s price is close to production costs, the price of Rotterdam port in the Netherlands has also reached a relative bottom, but recent developments have exacerbated uncertainty.
China’s export price fell to US $2500-2600 / ton FOB yesterday (April 26), while the quotation for Europe fell to US $2600-2700 / ton from US $2700-2800 / ton last week. Accordingly, the price of Rotterdam port in the Netherlands is reported to have decreased by US $50-100 / ton, but the transaction value reached has been stable.
Any major change in port prices will lag behind the Asian market. Traders said the Chinese market was relatively pessimistic, but Europe remained largely unchanged. However, market participants are still guessing the recent trend.
One end-user said he would not purchase at the current market level because he thought prices would fall.
In the absence of clear instructions from China, some European participants pinned their hopes on the recent bidding results of 2100 tons of iron ore by a German steelmaker. But sources said that the price of iron ore was in the range of 2800-3200 US dollars per ton.
Another German steelmaker held a tender for 1500 tons today, and the closing price may provide some transparency.