Clampdown of illegal antimony plants suspends

BEIJING (Asian Metal) 11 Nov 08 – The clampdown of the illegal antimony plants in Lengshuijiang region has been suspended due to the confrontation between local smelters and the police forces and the law-enforcement personnel last week. It is4informed that the clampdown will be resumed this Sunday on 16 November, 2008.
A Loudi-based smelter with a monthly production capacity of around 400-500 tons told Asian Metal that the clampdown has been suspended as the local smelters prevented the action from carrying out, which finally led to riot. Several police forces and local law-enforcement personnel were injured in the confrontation and were sent to the hospital. Now the government transfers to find those local smelters and the clampdown will resume on this Sunday.
The source also revealed that there will be 59 illegal plants in the first list of tearing down and three to five plants will be luckily kept, among which two are likely to be Loudi Xinghua Non-ferrous Smelting Co.,Ltd and Hunan Zhenqiang Antimony Co.,Ltd.
At present, except for the above mentioned two smelters and Hsikwangshan Twinkling Star as well as several others, almost all the smelting plants have been cut off water and electricity and are in suspension.
"We hope that the antimony price may become stable after clampdown of the illegal smelting plants. However, we are still not sure what results we are going to get," said the source who hold around 60 tons of antimony ingot on hand. Currently there is only one production line running with a monthly production capacity of around 20-30 tons.
The source holds that the antimony offers range widely from RMB33,000/t (USD4,832/t) to RMB37,000/t (USD5,417/t). They heard some deals concluded at the lower side.
Another smelter with a monthly production capacity of around 400 tons in Hunan , near the Lengshuijian region, confirmed the current situation of the Lengshuijiang region and the current status of the plants in the area. The source stated that as many other suppliers and traders are watching closely on the development of the clampdown action with high expectations that it may result in good influences to the whole antimony market.
The source also revealed that offers for antimony ingot range widely. Some smelters quote RMB36,000-37,000/t (USD5,271-5,417/t) ex works, while some others quote as low as RMB30,000/t (USD4,392/t) VAT excluded ex works. The source believes that there is still huge room for the antimony ingot price to drop as the offers for antimony concentrate decreases. Recently some antimony concentrate suppliers are anxious about price of antimony concentrate to decrease because stocks accumulated in the past one to two months when most antimony ingot smelters hesitate to purchase and they quote around RMB20,000/t (USD2,928/t) VAT excluded for antimony concentrate 50-60% at present, down from RMB28,000-29,000/t (USD4,100-4,246/t) VAT excluded around a month ago.