13 July 2011, 8:52 a.m.
By Kitco News
http://www.kitco.com/

(Kitco News) -- BNP Paribas looks for tin to rise in the next year and for the spread with nickel to widen. LME stocks likely would be “very low” if not for a period of Chinese de-stocking, with tightness in the tin market having been deferred, says a report from senior metals strategist Stephen Briggs. “Short of current fiscal woes and economic concerns leading to a marked slowdown in global growth, we still expect the LME tin price to recover strongly in the coming 12 months,” BNP says, forecasting it will top the April high near $33,500 a metric ton and perhaps even challenge $35,000 in the first half of 2012. “However, whilst tin is essentially a supply story, it could still be stymied, at least temporarily, by economic/ financial fears,” Briggs says. “So for now, we prefer to express our bullishness in relative terms. In particular, we expect tin to outperform nickel, also a supply story, but a bearish one.” Tin’s premium over nickel has narrowed in recent months, but BNP forecast that it will widen again to at least the $7,000 level of mid-April in late 2011 and beyond.

By Allen Sykora of Kitco News; asykora@kitco.com