London 09/05/2016 - Shuttered Indonesian smelter RBT shipped its remaining tin stocks out of the country during April, chartering an entire ship to haul around 1,750 tonnes to Singapore, sources told FastMarkets.
"That is the last batch... and then they are totally closed," a trading source said.
Before announcing its closure in February this year, RBT was the largest of the 20 or so independent smelters operating on the tin-rich Indonesian island of Bangka.
RBT's 'PE' export permit for this year totalled 12,000 tonnes, sources said.
The company had allotted its remaining production to customers with existing offtake agreements and held little material available for spot purchasing.
"When I spoke to someone there, they were only able to show me limited tonnages," a second trading source said.
And on April 26, RBT chartered an entire 70-container freight vessel that is part of a routine shipping service taking tin and other material from Bangka to nearby Singapore, sources with knowledge of the matter said.
A standard fit of 25 tonnes of tin per container would lead to a total of 1,750 tonnes of tin being exported.
RBT tonnages took up the whole of the April 26 shipment, FastMarkets sources in Indonesia claimed.
"We tried to book some containers to go to Singapore but [the shipping line] said all the cargo for that ship was for RBT," a producer source said.
Exports from Indonesia rose in April to their highest monthly total so far this year at 6,911 tonnes.
LME tin stocks rose 15 percent to 5,575 tonnes over last month although no RBT ingots would have been included because the brand is now no longer accepted for LME warranting as of March 23 this year.
Premiums for 99.9 percent purity tin ingots have dropped to $80-110 per tonne from $90-120 at the start of the month.
(Editing by Mark Shaw)