BEIJING (Asian Metal) 15 Jan 21 - Malaysia Smelting Corp (MSC), one of major tin ingot 99.9%min producers in Southeast Asia, keeps the operating rate of tin ingot at around 30% because of prevention and control measures for COVID-19 in January, a source from this company revealed to Asian Metal.

"Due to the increasingly severe pandemic, the government announced national lockdown again on January 12. We keep the operating rate of only around 30% for tin ingot and expect that tin ingot output would move down to below 1,000t in January," the source said, revealing that the company only maintains long-term orders after output reduction.

With an annual production capacity of 30,000t of tin ingot 99.95%, the company totally produced around 24,000t in 2019 and produced around 1,000t per month due to COVID-19 in 2020. It expects that tin ingot output would drop to around 700t in January. It purchases tin concentrate from Africa and most of its downstream clients are in Southeast Asia.

This Thursday, LME tin price stood at USD21,000/t, up by USD80/t from Wednesday. As the supply is tight in market, consumers make purchases actively. Thus, it is expected that LME tin prices would rise with fluctuation in the coming week.