Tungsten Price in China Keeps Rising Due to Tight Supply of Raw Material

Analysis of latest tungsten market in China from Chinatungsten Online: This week, domestic tungsten market keeps stable. Considering the pressure from funds and demand at the year-end, low production rate of mines, as well as the poor trading volume, tungsten enterprises in the market is caught in heavy wait-and-see atmosphere.

Quotations for tungsten products rise slightly. Wolframite tungsten alloy bar concentrate was quoted at $17,519-17,674/t, up $77.5/t; scheelite concentrate price was $17,209-17,364/t, up $77.5/t; APT was quoted at $303-307/mtu, up $1.75/mtu. Quotation for medium particle tungsten carbide remains unchanged.

Both supply and demand are weak in the tungsten concentrate market. Favorable industry policy is affecting the market while shortage in supply and expectation of increased costs support high selling prices of enterprises. Most insiders are still optimistic about the outlook.

Smelting factories, which affected by short supply of raw material and pressure of environmental protection, continue to maintain a low level of operation rate. Downstream market mainly purchases replying on rigid demand, consuming part of growth drivers. Taken together, short-term APT price will get support from production costs.

In the tungsten powder market, downstream demand remains weak with less enquiry and new orders. Most transactions are happened in old Cemented Carbide Inserts customers. Besides, with the reducing of operating rate tungsten carbide suppliers of enterprises at the year-end, smelting factories now mainly wait and see.

In the short term, mainstream tungsten price will stabilize, considering the quiet market atmosphere approaching the holiday. Tungsten market nowadays has good mentality and high price of tungsten ore assures of stability of the whole market.

Prices of tungsten products on Dec. 27, 2017

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