China’s aluminium fluoride industry is not out of trouble yet.

Readers may remember we posted here and here about the recent woes in the industry. In May, most producers closed their doors for the month, and production dropped to only 12,000 tonnes. Exports that month also dropped, to only 4,000t.

But the industry re-opened its doors in June, and production rose to 43,000t. (Export figures will be available in our monthly report, due out next week.)

Trouble is, they took all that pain, but got little gain in return. At the end of April, just before the industry took the shutdown, the domestic price was hovering at about RM9,000 (US$1428). At the end of May, it was still at RMB9,000. Now, at the end of June after a month of the plants running again, the price has dropped to RMB8700 (US$1380).

We think the industry association will almost certainly call for another “holiday”. Their only hope right now is that we provinces such as Henan giving power price subsidies to smelters to keep them open, perhaps demand for ALF3 will be strong enough to support the industry. But it’s a slim hope.