Antimony

Antimony is a lustrous, extremely brittle and hard crystalline semi-mental that is silvery white in its most common allotropic form. Antimony is a poor conductor of heat and electricity. In nature, antimony has a strong affinity for sulfur and for such metals as lead, silver, and copper. Antimony is primarily a byproduct of the mining, smelting and refining of lead, silver, and copper ores. There is no longer any mine production of antimony in the US.

The most common use of antimony is in antimony trioxide, a chemical that is used as a flame retardant in textiles, plastics, adhesives and building materials. Antimony trioxide is also used in battery components, ceramics, bearings, chemicals, glass, and ammunition.

Prices - Antimony prices in 2003 rallied sharply to an average of 110.89 cents per pound. That was a 7-year high and was up sharply by 17% from the 2002 level of 94.83 cents. Bullish factors were the same as for other key metals in 2003-the weak dollar and much stronger US economic growth in the second half of the year.

Supply - World mine production of antimony in 2002 fell -14.2% to 143,000 metric tons from the record high production level of 167,000 metric tons in 2001. China accounted for 91% of world antimony production in 2002, with only South Africa (4.1% of world production) and Bolivia (1.5%), showing world production shares above 1%. The 14.2% drop in antimony production in 2002 was mainly due to the -13.3% drop in Chinese production to 130,000 metric tons from a record 150,000 tons in 2001. US secondary production of antimony in 2002 fell slightly to 5,350 metric tons from 5,380 metric tons in 2001.

Demand - US industrial consumption of antimony in 2002 fell to 12,900 metric tons from 13,100 in 2001. Of that consumption in 2002, 57% was for flame-retardants at 7,420 metric tons, down from 7,570 metric tons in 2001.

Trade - US imports in 2002 of antimony ore fell to 1,320 metric tons from 2,610 in 2001, with the antimony content falling to 1,310 metric tons from 2,290 in 2001. Imports of antimony oxide in 2002 rose to 27,900 from 27,700 in 2001. US exports of antimony oxide fell to 3,260 metric tons from 5,880 metric tons in 2001.