June 2009 | Ferro-alloys
Market bottoms in April: Molybdenum highlights
Molybdenum market picks up noticeably in May with prices rising 10-20%.
We have been trying to call the bottom of the molybdenum market; it seems that April was it. The price of ferro-molybdenum reached a low of $19/kg in Europe in the middle of April, before starting to rise in the last week of that month. It continued to rise steadily throughout May, almost entirely on the back of Chinese buying.
China imports huge volumes of molybdenum
China has been importing vast amounts of molybdic oxide and ferro-molybdenum lately. In March a new record was set for volumes of molybdenum imported in a month. This record was then broken in April with 7,407 tonnes imported. This was a 1,598% increase year-on-year, and is an annualised rate of almost 90,000 tonnes. This of course is unsustainable; it is not possible for China to require that much molybdenum in one year.
Why the sudden rush to import? One reason is...
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