Latest Update in the China Lead Market

SHFE nonferrous metals increased broadly on Friday January 15. Aluminium added 0.92%, lead advanced 0.4%, nickel firmed 1.19% and tin rose 0.35%, while copper edged down 0.09% and zinc shed 1.67%.

Operating rates across primary lead smelters in Henan, Hunan and Yunnan provinces lost 3.6 percentage points from the previous week to 54.1% in the week ended January 15, showed an SMM survey.

Operating rates across lead-acid battery producers in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hubei and Hebei provinces remained unchanged at 74.36% in the week ended January 15.

Operating rates across licensed smelters of secondary lead in Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan and Guizhou averaged 47.8% in the week ended January 15, up 2.1 percentage points from the previous week, showed an SMM survey.

The following table shows the ferrous and nonferrous metals movement on the SHFE and DCE on January 15, 2021

Social inventories of lead ingots across Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Tianjin declined 2,500 mt from last Friday January 8 to 56,400 mt as of Friday January 15, an SMM surveyed showed. This was down 400 mt from Monday January 11.

Shanghai base metals were mostly higher on Friday morning as investors reacted to the release of US President-elect Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue package. Meanwhile, their counterparts on the LME traded mixed.

The dollar drifted lower on Thursday in choppy trading, after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell struck a dovish tone, saying the US central bank is not raising interest rates anytime soon and rejecting suggestions the Fed might start reducing its bond purchases in the near term.