Mines: tin at 42,500 USD per ton on the market, double the price at the same period in 2021
A new year and a new record for the price of tin . The London Metal Exchange’s (LME) three-month tin hit its latest milestone of $44,200 a tonne on January 21 before suffering a bout of vertigo early this week.
It has since regained its bullish calm, last trading around $42,500, still more than double the price at this time last year. Liquid metal continues to claim a significant additional premium.
Tin is experiencing shortage prices, having been plagued by a protracted supply chain crisis since the start of the coronavirus. The shutdowns spurred demand for home electronics, all of which contain tin solder, and simultaneously disrupted a small, globally concentrated supply base.
Tin remains a destocked market and low inventory coverage makes it extremely sensitive to any surprises on the supply side, such as the failure of permits in Indonesia.
The supply chain is also very fragile, dependent on MSC’s operational recovery and the possibility of further disruption of tin concentrate flows across the Chinese border.
There are a lot of supply issues in a year where the market really needs everything to go well. Analysts are increasingly looking further ahead and wondering where to find the extra metal to meet the demand for growing electronics and energy transition technologies.
Analysts at Fitch Solutions, for example, expect tin prices to “decline slightly from spot levels in 2022,” but remain historically higher before hitting $35,500 a day. ton by 2030.
That would represent a near doubling of the 2016-2020 average of $18,729, a requirement needed to reinvigorate a thin pipeline of projects, according to a Nov. 2 research note from the ratings firm.
