Launch of three monthly price assessments for barite

Fastmarkets will on Thursday August 31 launch three barite prices to complement its existing coverage of the barite market.

The assessments are for barite, drilling grade, API, 4.10 on an FOB basis from China, India and Morocco.

India, China and Morocco were the top producers of barite in 2022, according to the US Geological Survey.

An open consultation on the proposed prices ran from July 31 until August 28.

In recent months, market participants have reported a resurgence in liquidity and availability of the 4.10 grade of barite. Reportedly some western purchasers of barite have opted to purchase increased volumes of 4.10 grade due to diminishing availability of 4.20 grade. 4.20 grade barite remains the preference for other western buyers as well as the Middle Eastern market.

Market feedback received during the consultation was in support of Fastmarkets launching these prices.

Thus the launch of these price assessments will meet market participants’ needs for greater coverage of the barite market under these new conditions.

The price specifications will be as follows:

Barite, drilling grade, unground lump, API, bulk, SG 4.10, FOB China, $ per tonne
Quality: API grade, SG 4.10 unground lump
Quantity: 1,000 tonnes minimum
Location: FOB China
Timing: Spot
Unit: $ per tonne
Payment terms: within 30 days
Publication: Monthly, last Thursday of every month, 4pm London time.

Barite, drilling grade, unground lump, API, bulk, SG 4.10, FOB Chennai, $ per tonne
Quality: API grade, SG 4.10 unground lump
Quantity: 1,000 tonnes minimum
Location: FOB Chennai, India
Timing: Spot
Unit: $ per tonne
Payment terms: within 30 days
Publication: Monthly, last Thursday of every month, 4pm London time.

Barite, drilling grade, unground lump, API, bulk, SG 4.10, FOB Morocco, $ per tonne
Quality: API grade, SG 4.10 unground lump
Quantity: 1,000 tonnes minimum
Location: FOB Morocco
Timing: Spot
Unit: $ per tonne
Payment terms: within 30 days
Publication: Monthly, last Thursday of every month, 4pm London time.

The other existing barite prices published by Fastmarkets are unaffected, and will remain in place.

To provide feedback on these prices, or if you would like to provide price information by becoming a data submitter to these prices, please contact Alex Cook by email at: pricing@fastmarkets.com. Please add the subject heading “FAO: Alex Cook, re: barite.”

To see all Fastmarkets’ pricing methodology and specification documents, go to: https://www.fastmarkets.com/methodology.

What to read next
Fastmarkets has had a strong interest in the proposed new assessments and would like to gather additional information on the specification and grades that should assess.  Based on the feedback, the proposed specifications have been updated as follows:  Quality: Selected Nordic (Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian) export grades of both planed and rough sawn timber spruce (whitewood) […]
While Fastmarkets understands that the PIX sawn timber FAS Finland indices have not been widely adopted by the industry, we have received feedback that there is commercial use for the indices. Therefore, we propose to maintain them for the time being.  The following indices are affected:  The extended consultation period for this proposed discontinuation starts […]
To increase the transparency of our methodology, Fastmarkets clarifies that the quotation period of the MHP nickel payable indicator is the month of delivery, or the month M. Any data points Fastmarkets received otherwise will be normalized to the M month based on the monthly spreads of the prevailing exchange-traded Class-1 nickel reference price, or […]
Following an initial consultation with the market and a review of the typical data sets that have been collected over recent months, Fastmarkets is proposing changes to the specifications of the index for MB-IRO-0009 iron ore 65% Fe Brazil-origin fines, cfr Qingdao, by raising the silica base specification to 2.7% from 2.2%, as well as an […]
The corrections are as follows: AG-BRY-0004 Barley Feed barley FOB Argentina $/mt Incorrect prices: August $119.00 per tonne Corrected to: August $219.00 per tonne Fastmarkets’ pricing database has been updated to reflect this change. These prices are part of the Fastmarkets Ags Grains package. For more information or to provide feedback on this correction notice or […]
This price is a part of the Fastmarkets scrap package. For more information on our North America Ferrous Scrap methodology and specifications please click here. To get in touch about access to this price assessment, please contact customer.success@fastmarkets.com.