Liu Donghua: Stagnant antimony market sees weak demand, deep processing products may rise out of the blue

Asian Metal: Hello, Mr. Liu, thank you for granting this interview. I understand the company engages in the processing of antimony products, could you introduce the leading products?

Liu: The leading products include sodium antimonite, antimony pentoxide and ATG etc.

Asian Metal: Could you introduce their application fields, pros and cons of each product?

Liu: Certainly. Sodium antimonite is generally grouped into sodium pyroantimonate and sodium metaantimonate.

1. Sodium pyroantimonate is mainly applied in producing solar energy glass and other special glasses given its superior properties and lower cost compared with antimony trioxide, therefore, it has occupied absolute market share. As a flame retardant additive, it is mainly used in producing engineering plastics and textiles, especially in producing high end engineering plastic with special color requirements due to its better performance than antimony trioxide; high costs is the only shortcoming of the commodity. Owing to the small volume of raw material required in the plastic industry, the value of product is not sensitive to higher costs.

2. Compared with antimony trioxide, antimony pentoxide is more suitable as the flame retardant additive for special plastic and textile despite the high cost, and few companies in Japan and US are producing the commodity domesitcally. In fact, we classified antimony pentoxide in some grades as sodium pyroantimonate, which are traditionally called antimony pentoxide overseas.

3. ATG is generally used as a catalyst for PET production instead of antimony trioxide and antimony acetate gives better effects, especially non-drying ATG, but it is highly required in packaging and storage to free from moisture.

Asian Metal: Now we have a better understand of these downstream products. How about the current demand for deep processing antimony products in the market, and whether demand will improve or reduce? What industries will behind the improving demand, if it happens?

Liu: The demand for sodium pyroantimonate has reduced a considerably given the economic crises in the West and the weak solar energy market, but the demand will improve along with the recovery of global economy. Meanwhile, the economic recovery could boost the demand for plastic, textile and electric material, meaning that the demand for sodium pyroantimonate, antimony pentoxide will rise slowly. If PET manufacturers could realize the superiority of ATG (It could replace antimony trioxide and antimony acetate in some industries), I believe that demand will surge!

Asian Metal: That is to say, the market demand for processed antimony products has not been fully unleashed due to the depressed economy, and what do you think of the state of the current antinomy market?

Liu: This year could be a difficult year for antimony market as the economy has been appalling in Europe, one of the largest flame retardant consumers area, and Japan has remained relatively weak as well, so the demand for antimony has fallen, which depresses the market. Furthermore, the current trend may persist to later this year, even the next year unless significant positive news appears.

Asian Metal: Demand from major economies such as Europe, South Korea and Japan is pessimistic, and how about operation rates in domestic antimony companies? Seeing the weak demand in the market, is there any information underpinning market prices that could be shared?

Liu: The current operation rates are no more than 50%. Personally, price and demand of antimony could improve if the US economy recovers slowly and the US dollar remains strong as it could boost the economy in other regions.

Asian Metal: Besides pinning the hope on economic recovery in US which could boost global demand, do you have any suggestions to the Chinese government supporting nonferrous industry politically? As it is well known that the State Reserve Bureau of China has firstly implemented strategic storage for antimony in November, 2012.

Liu: The storage strategy has had little effect and it could only solve problems temporarily, so I suggest that the government could pay more attention to policies related to following aspects:

1. Strengthening the combat with antimony ingot smuggling and tax inspection to narrow down the space for smuggling.

2. Investigate whether cancelling export rates within a certain period could be taken into consideration?

3. Most radical is that we hope the authorities could issue stricter regulations on flame retardants, and strengthen law enforcement. The current problems could not be resolved permanently without a mature and stable Chinese antimony market as China is a huge market which is larger than the sum of Europe, US, South Korea and Japan.

Asian Metal: Thank you for accepting the interview, and hope further cooperation between your company and Asian Metal!

Liu: Thank you!