South Korea's molybdenum concentrate imports doubled to 821 mt in May, compared with 406 mt a year ago, according to data released over the weekend by Korea Customs Service.
This was due to South Korea's largest moly oxide producer, SeAH M&S, doubling its output to 800-1,000 mt/month since June last year as a result of capacity additions, said a local moly concentrate trader.
But South Korea imported 198 mt of moly concentrate from Mongolia in May, down from 369 mt last year, while imports from China fell to zero from 37 mt.
May, however, saw moly concentrate imports from Chile (409 mt), Canada (35 mt), Mexico (160 mt) and Peru (17 mt), compared with none from these countries in the year-ago period.
Over January-May this year, South Korea's imports from Mongolia declined to 938 mt, from 1,791 mt in the year-ago period, according to the customs data. This was despite a 50.3% increase in the country's total moly concentrate imports to 4,680 mt in the first five months of this year.
Over January-May this year, South Korea's imports from Chile more than doubled to 2,924 mt from 1,023 mt a year ago, while shipments from Mexico tripled to 651 mt from 209 mt.
Imports from Canada were 75 mt, while shipments from the US and Peru stood at 51 mt and 41 mt, respectively, compared with none from these countries over January-May 2012.