Wuxi Stainless Steel Exchange launches APT contract

For this new contract, the delivery period is May 2021 and the last trading day is May 17, 2021 with the deadline for delivery of bill of lading of May 18, the exchange said.

The trading hours for this contract are 8:30-11:30 each trading day.

The quality of APT traded on the contract is aligned with China’s national standard GB/T 10116-2007 and the grade is APT-0.

Sources told Fastmarkets they will consider whether to participate in this electronic trading after the Lunar New Year holiday (February 11-17).

The Wuxi APT contract closed daily trading at 140 yuan ($21.64) per kg on Friday.

China’s physical domestic APT market has been robust recently, with the spot price rising to 138,000-139,000 yuan per tonne this week, compared with 136,000-137,000 yuan per tonne a week earlier, according to market sources.

Sources told Fastmarkets that the uptrend in China’s domestic APT price would continue given healthy demand from the downstream tungsten powder and alloy industries as well as tightening availability of the material in overseas markets.

This bullishness fed into the Chinese APT export market and Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for tungsten APT 88.5% WO3 min, fob main ports China was $248-254 per metric tonne unit (mtu) on Wednesday February 3, up by $1-5 per mtu (1.2%) from $243-253 per mtu a week earlier.