There are now concerns that Indonesian smelters will flood the global market with tin and help push prices down, as they seek to offload material held back during the export stoppage.
Smelters in Indonesia's main tin-producing region of Bangka island stopped tin ingot shipments from Oct. 1 in an effort to prop up falling global prices.
At the time, smelters targeted prices above $23,000 a ton after benchmark London prices for the base metal slumped by almost half from records above $33,000 a tonne hit in April.
A central figure behind industry efforts to support prices was Johan Murod, a black-belt in karate and director of PT Bangka-Belitung Timah Sejahtera, which groups six private tin smelters on Bangka island.
"I have resigned as the secretary of ITA," Murod said in an email to Reuters. "The reason I resigned (was) because I am very disappointed with PT Timah and PT Koba Tin."
"The reason why the stoppage of export failed is because some of the members of ITA breached the commitment," said Murod, whose firm produces 15,000 tonnes of tin ingots per year. PT Timah could not be reached for comment on Friday.
At the height of the export stoppage, a group of 28 private and public smelters formed the ITA to create a united front for the Indonesian industry.
Support also came from the Indonesian government, with the trade ministry describing the export ban as "fine -- as long as the objective is to improve our bargaining power as the biggest tin exporter in the world".
But PT Timah, the world's top integrated tin miner and ITA member, continued to ship ingots as per contracts agreed before the ban -- sowing the seeds for failure, said industry players.
Despite a large drop in tin exports in November, Murod forecasts that December could see an additional 10,000 tonnes of tin shipped from the archipelago of 17,000 islands.
But as analysts say logistics or bottlenecks may limit shipments, the December export data will now prove crucial.
Advantage Latin America?
Sceptical analysts doubted the Indonesian smelter industry's resolve, citing previous attempts by Southeast Asia's largest economy to prop up tin prices.
The doubts proved right after government data showed a surprise rise in monthly tin exports for October.
"Some of the producers do have longer dated commitments with regards to exports... that was one of the reasons why we haven't seen some of the curbs being done by the large exporters," said Dominic Schnider, executive director for wealth management research at UBS.
"You don't want to be unreliable -- that really hurts your business in the long run," he said. "This was a little bit misplaced by those who organised or were expecting the curbs, so I wasn't really surprised."
Schnider said the average marginal production cost for global tin producers was about $9,000 a tonne, and that the Indonesian action could ultimately offer an advantage to rival tin miners in Latin America in the distant future.
He forecast that global tin production would be 354,000 tonnes this year with a deficit of 12,000 tonnes, and 366,000 tonnes in 2012 with 9,000 tonnes deficit.
Indonesia, which has a track record of supply issues that attempt to impact prices, exported 92,487 tonnes of refined tin last year and 99,287 tonnes in 2009, trade ministry data showed.
People Power Fails
In a final attempt to make the ban hold, the ITA looked to force PT Timah's hand into halting all its shipments, and hundreds of smelter workers even went as far as to block a shipment bound for Singapore from PT Koba Tin.
Unlisted PT Koba Tin is a joint venture between Malaysia Smelting Corporation and PT Timah.
Once Koba Tin's Singapore shipment of 400 tonnes finally made it through the port blockade, the flood-gates began to open in the
