Approaching the year-end, some enterprises closed their accounts early, and trading in the lead concentrate market remained sluggish. In the imported ore trade market, a small number of tender and bid prices were quoted at -$200/dmt, but most domestic smelters adopted a wait-and-see approach, with only a small amount of rigid demand transactions concluded. In the domestic ore trade market, current TCs quotations were mostly pre-sale quotations for 2026, and lead concentrate TCs remained generally stable in December. Smelters in Henan, Inner Mongolia, and other regions still had expectations for the continuous arrival of imported ore under long-term contracts. Smelters in southern regions such as Jiangxi, Hunan, and Yunnan primarily used silver-lead ore as raw material, and TCs for such mainstream raw materials remained predominantly negative, with no recent adjustments. According to SMM, silver prices hit new historical highs again this week, but TCs for silver-lead ore and the payable indicator for silver were not adjusted. Mine enterprises generally accepted smelters' demand for maintaining a stable payable indicator.
