PRICING NOTICE: Five-tonne minimum lot size suggested for vanadium pentoxide

As Metal Bulletin continues to look at the way it covers the vanadium market, new support has emerged for reducing the minimum tonnage requirement of its European vanadium pentoxide quotation.

The possibility of creating a global price, taking into account all business worldwide, was widely rejected, as was the suggestion of a dual Chinese-European price.

However, because more deals of smaller quantities are now being reported, market participants have said again that it may be worthwhile to reduce the minimum tonnage requirement from 18 tonnes to 5 tonnes, as per the European ferro-vanadium quotation.

The vanadium pentoxide market is known to be extremely illiquid and although the reduction from twice-weekly to once-weekly has helped to address this to some extent, there may be scope for further adjustment.

Moreover, sources have said they believe a reduction in the minimum volume requirement would allow a larger number of deals to be captured by the quotation.

The assessment is used as a benchmark for the settlement of physical contracts, and Metal Bulletin is therefore keen to make sure that the price remains fully representative of the spot market.

To that end, we are now seeking further comments on this suggestion, and also seeking any further suggestions on how to expand coverage of this market.
The suggested specification would therefore be:

Price: Vanadium pentoxide min 98% in-warehouse Rotterdam $/lb V2O5
Basis: In-warehouse Rotterdam
Currency: USD
Unit: per lb V2O5
Min lot size: 5 tonnes (+/- 5%)
Payment terms: Cash, other payment terms normalised
Quality: 98.00% min; Si 0.25% max; Fe 0.30% max; S 0.03% max; P 0.05% max; As 0.02% max; Na2+K2O 1.50% max.
Form: Brown flake
Publication: Weekly. Between 2pm and 3pm London time on Friday

Please send comments on this suggested specification to Claire Hack at chack@metalbulletin.com