London 26/01/2016 - Indonesia's PT Timah will export just 500 tonnes of tin per month if prices remain at current levels, it said
At an annualised 6,000 tonnes, this figure is a just 23 percent of the 26,000 tonnes of metal that the state-owned company - one of the biggest tin smelters and exporters of the metal in the world - produced in 2015.
"As for sales quantity, we only have long-term contracts of around 500 tonnes per month which are to selected customers only," company representative Agung Nugroho told FastMarkets on Tuesday. "The more we sell, the more we lose."
LME three-month tin has gained $345 per tonne today along with rises in other commodities but at $13,945 per tonne it is down seven percent since the start of this year and 26 percent below where it started 2015.
AETI, an association of private smelters, sees Indonesian tin exports in 2016 matching last year's 70,154 tonnes but global industry body ITRI sees shipments down this year.
"Volumes should tick over at around 5,000 tonnes per month so overall that's not oversupplying the whole tin market," ITRI head of Research Peter Kettle said earlier this month.
Indonesia is a key provider of tin to the global market, consuming very little of its own output.
Despite cut announcements in the country as well as in top consumer China, premiums have failed to react, holding at $55-75 per tonne for 99.9 percent purity tin in-warehouse Singapore.
(Editing by Mark Shaw)