Antimony trioxide price climbing higher everywhere

Following the increasing antimony metal price, price of antimony trioxide also increased in European market.
A European trader sold 10t of 99.5%min antimony trioxide to a local customer at USD3,900/t in warehouse Rotterdam in the end of last week, and he sees the price increased by USD100/t compared to the week before. The source claimed that his sales of the material is about 5-10t each week in April. "There is demand of antimony trioxide, but very little compared to last year," said the source.
He holds that there is no shortage of antimony trioxide in European market because there are several local producers, also all of them are not producing at the full capacity right now. However, since the Chinese suppliers increased the antimony quotations, European producers raised their offers too as they claimed higher raw material cost. Because the increasing price is not driven by increasing demand, the trader expects price to stabilize soon.
Another European trader confirmed the increasing price of antimony trioxide in Europe. "Chinese offers rose by USD200/t in the last two weeks from USD3,600-3,800/t to currently USD3,800-4,000/t CIF Rotterdam, and the material in Rotterdam warehouse increased from USD3,700-3,800/t to USD3,900-4,000/t in warehouse Rotterdam.
Agreed with the previous source, the trader thinks that the main reason of the higher price is due to the announcement from Chinese government that Hunan province was going to invest over one billion RMB on metal stock. "But the metals also including some base metals, antimony is going to be very small part of it," said the trader, and he thinks there is no momentum for price to increase further.