Tellurium Market Update (June 13, 2012)

Prices for 99.99 percent pure tellurium continue to trade lower on slack demand and persistent oversupply. Prices for the element in September of last year were trading as high as RMB 2,500 to 2,600/kg, but have fallen by more than half to trade at RMB 1,000/kg in the past week, according to Metal Pages.

Metal Pages reported one Shanghai-based trader suggesting that “[d]epressed by the sluggish demand, tellurium prices still have room to fall.” A Guangdong-based trader reported that exports of the clement have been as weak as the domestic market, noting that “[e]xport prices have been cut to lower levels than on the Chinese spot market in order to attract overseas buyers.”

China’s solar industry has been battling a recent round of punitive tariffs leveled by the US on solar panel imports from the burgeoning solar manufacturer. The tariff of around 30 percent was levied by the US after the US Commerce Department ruled in favor of US firms, which held that Chinese producers were exporting solar panels below market prices.

Currently, China’s solar companies constitute more than 60 percent of the global market, with the US market alone accounting for about 20 percent of sales of China’s largest solar panel manufacturers.

The dispute is part of a number of ongoing quarrels between clean energy producers and is the result of increasingly inexpensive solar panels.