The Conversation (0)
A brief overview of tellurium price developments, supply and demand and significant market movers.
Tellurium prices have broken from their declining price trend this past month, with prices moving higher for the first time in a year. Metal Bulletin showed tellurium prices maintaining upward price momentum to a US$90 to $135 per kilogram range in the last week of August after rising to between $5 and $10 per kilogram the previous week.
London, UK-based Metal-Pages also documented the return of tellurium demand, showing a similar $5 to $10 per kilogram increase in prices since mid-August, primarily in Chinese tellurium markets.
After hovering near the $100 per kilogram floor price set by many producers, tellurium gained support from a number of strategically-minded consumers and speculative investors in Chinese markets.
Metal-Pages notes that confidence in the market was provided by Germany’s transition towards solar energy — it added another 543 MW of photovoltaic (PV) capacity in July — and a sales rebound of $957 million in the second quarter of this year for First Solar, a cadmium telluride PV producer.
However, another major influential factor was increased demand for tellurium’s metallurgical applications. Demand for tellurium as an alloy, semiconductor and component in phase-change memory devices has contributed to the diversification of tellurium demand in recent months and will likely continue to drive its future.