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Manganese miners in Australia and South Africa announced the other day a rise in export prices (by more or less 5%) of manganese ore for May 2012. A rise in prices of manganese ore was for the first time in two years, but the rise has not affected the world price of silicomanganese yet, which is partly because the rise is applied to the shipments during May 2012 at earliest, meaning actual costs have not risen yet. However reaction from the market to the rise has been slow.

The reaction could be much quicker if the market were brisk, but the current offers for shipments to Japan are at USD 1,280 to USD 1,300 per tonne CIF without momentum to rebound to over USD 1,300 per tonne. The level seemingly has even slipped down a bit, after the ore price rise was announced.

Background is that firstly, Japanese buying interest has shrunk as the contracted price with steel mills for the Q2 (April to June) 2012 was determined at around Yen115,000 per tonne delivered, equivalent to USD 1,200 per tonne CIF, and secondly, the Indian producers are probably ready to somehow absorb the small ore price rise of about 5% if deals are done at the current level of price, USD 1,300 per tonne that is a result of Indian producers' price-increasing efforts in the past two months from the level in January 2012 of USD 980 to USD 1,000 per tonne CIF.

Source - TEX Report Limited