# Antimony: Trading

No futures, just merchants and agency price assessments

Source page: https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/antimony/trading/

What this tab covers How and where it is bought and sold: who buys and sells, exchanges and benchmarks, contract types, the big trading houses and how prices are discovered.

Antimony has no futures market. Ingot and trioxide trade through producers, merchants and minor-metals traders under contracts priced off agency assessments. USGS uses the Argus price for 99.65% metal, cost, insurance and freight. Rotterdam warehouse prices are the Western reference, and Chinese domestic quotes signal the source market. With thin liquidity, export policy moves the price far more than stocks do. Governments are re-entering the market, as with an $80 million conditional US award for the Idaho mine.

#### Where it is bought (buyers)

- Flame-retardant compounders and trioxide makers in Europe (France and Belgium were 17.0% and 16.4% of world HS 8110 imports by value in 2024), the US, Japan and Thailand (Comtrade)
- Battery makers and secondary lead smelters buy antimonial lead
- Ammunition makers and the US National Defense Stockpile buy metal

#### Where it is sold (sellers)

- Chinese smelters in Hunan, Guangxi and Yunnan, under export licences
- Russia, Tajikistan, Bolivia, Burma and Turkey sell concentrates and metal; Turkey supplies 63% of the EU's antimony (EU CRM 2023)
- Thailand (25.9%), China (20.8%), Turkey (15.4%) and India were the top HS 8110 exporters by value in 2024 (Comtrade)

#### Exchanges and benchmarks

| Venue | Contract | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| **None** | No LME, CME or MCX contract | China's Fanya Metal Exchange traded antimony until its 2015 collapse; trade is now bilateral |

#### Contract types

- Spot and monthly contracts for regulus (MMTA Standard Grade II, 99.65% Sb) and trioxide, in-warehouse Rotterdam
- Concentrate contracts priced as a percentage of metal price
- Government offtake and stockpile contracts (US Department of War and DLA)

#### Top trading houses

- China Minmetals (state trader and producer)
- Specialist European minor-metal traders; names not published in the sources used

#### How prices are discovered

- Fastmarkets Rotterdam regulus and trioxide assessments
- Argus antimony 99.65% CIF (used by USGS)
- Chinese domestic prices (Fastmarkets, SMM, Asian Metal)

## Other sections

- [Summary](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/antimony/index.md)
- [Overview](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/antimony/overview/index.md)
- [Correlation](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/antimony/correlation/index.md)
- [Extraction](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/antimony/extraction/index.md)
- [Production](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/antimony/production/index.md)
- [Stocks](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/antimony/stocks/index.md)
- [Cycles](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/antimony/cycles/index.md)
- [Movement](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/antimony/movement/index.md)
- [Criticality](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/antimony/criticality/index.md)
- [Characteristics](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/antimony/characteristics/index.md)
- [Emissions](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/antimony/emissions/index.md)
- [Relationships](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/antimony/links/index.md)