China court sells Fanya bismuth, tungsten inventory for $95 mln

    BEIJING, Nov 23 (Reuters) - A Chinese court sold the
inventory of bismuth and tungsten bar held by the defunct Fanya
Metal Exchange for a total of 672.02  million yuan ($95.47
million), notices on the e-commerce platform hosting the sales
showed on Saturday.
    Two simultaneous 24-hour auctions that ended at 10:00 a.m.
(0200 GMT) saw 19,228.05 tonnes of bismuth bought by Kunming
Rongke New Materials Co for 606.07 million yuan and 431.95
tonnes of tungsten bar sold to China Minmetals Tungsten Co for
65.96 million yuan, data from the e-commerce platform Taobao
showed.
    The series of auctions on Taobao by the Kunming Intermediate
People's Court, which have so far raised more than 5 billion
yuan, are being watched by minor metals traders and former
creditors of Fanya who say they are still owed some 43 billion
yuan after the exchange collapsed in 2015 amid liquidity
problems. It was later taken over by government investigators.
    Neither sale achieved the market value stipulated by the
court on the auction pages, which valued the bismuth, a
silver-white metal used in soldering and stomach remedies, at
757.59 million yuan and the tungsten at 82.07 million yuan.
    The price Kunming Rongke paid for the bismuth works out to
31,520 yuan a tonne - a discount of 23.6% to the current China
spot price SMM-REM-RBM of 41,250 yuan a tonne.
    Spot prices have fallen around 40% over the past two years,
weighed down by the Fanya inventory overhang, which is
equivalent to more than a year's global supply.
    Prices for tungsten bar SMM-MIN-TGB, used in thermal
conductors, are currently around 240 yuan per kilogram.    
    The 13 Fanya auctions so far, covering everything from
antimony to tellurium, have raised around 5.59 billion yuan,
according to Reuters calculations.
    The table below shows the auction results.
    
 Commodity   Tonnes     Sold for    Winner
                        (yuan)      
 Indium          34.64  37.4 mln    China National Corp
                                    for Overseas Economic
                                    Cooperation
 Antimony       18,661  546.1 mln   China Minmetals Rare
                                    Earth Co
 Terbium          4.05  12.8 mln    China Minmetals Rare
 oxide                              Earth Co
 Dysprosium     148.75  221.5 mln   China Minmetals Rare
 oxide                              Earth Co
 APT            28,336  3.27 bln    China Molybdenum Co
 Cobalt             21  5.91 mln    Shanghai Sanqian New
                                    Energy Materials
 Silver          3.219  13.85 mln   Shanghai Yiyi Metal
                                    Materials Co
 Germanium       92.31  554.8 mln   Kunming Rongke New
                                    Materials
 Gallium       191.246  172.94 mln  Kunming Rongke New
                                    Materials
 Tellurium         170  51.95 mln   Vital Materials 
 Selenium        337.8  30.94 mln   Kunming Rongke New
                                    Materials
 Bismuth     19,228.05  606.07 mln  Kunming Rongke New
                                    Materials
 Tungsten       431.95   65.96 mln  China Minmetals
 bar                                Tungsten Co
 ($1 = 7.0389 Chinese yuan renminbi)

 (Reporting by Muyu Xu and Tom Daly; Editing by Muralikumar
Anantharaman)