Code: MFN000223 Title: Four companies buy big quantity of DLA antimony Content: Four companies buy big quantity of DLA antimony
NEW YORK, Oct. 29 -- The U.S. Defense Logistics Agency awarded 235,000 pounds of antimony metal to four companies last week as part of its latest sealed-bid offering of the material.
Aaron Ferer & Sons, Omaha, Neb., Advance Alloys Inc., Atlanta, Victory White Metals Inc., Fort Lee, N.J., and AMC of London paid a combined total of $334,000 for the metal, or approximately $1.42 a pound ($3,133 a tonne).
The off-grade material is unsuitable for producing trioxide. Cleaner material, which is used for making trioxide, was last quoted in a range of $3,350 to $4,000 a tonne in the United States, up between $150 and $200 a tonne since the end of September (AMM.com, Oct. 16).
The antimony market has been propelled in recent months by supply shortages fueled by shutdowns in China in mid-2001.
Antimony is offered bimonthly by the agency's Defense National Stockpile Center. The agency said last month that it intended to offer about 5.8 million pounds--all of the material remaining in the stockpile--during fiscal 2003 under its annual materials plan .
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The material is going to be short;the strategic stockpile[5.8 balance] will only supply 3 months worth of antimony and only one grade.As with many materials,much is required for the third world countries improved living standards.China may see antimony as a strategic material for many of their industries and have decided to hang on to a good part of it.The overall capitalization of the company is more important than share volume in this instance.It may play out,the worlds' resources are finite!
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