According to SMM, as the Chinese New Year holiday approaches, trading activity in the ore market has slowed down, and lead concentrate offers showed no significant changes this week. Many smelters in Hunan province were expected to implement production cuts in February and undergo routine maintenance shutdowns during the Chinese New Year holiday, with some manufacturers planning to stock up on raw materials after the holiday. In regions such as Henan and Inner Mongolia, smelters' raw material inventories briefly accumulated after winter stockpiling supplies arrived at plants successively. Some lead-zinc mines gradually entered the winter break in February, leading to subdued trading in the ore market. In the domestic imported ore market, although lead concentrate TCs in January remained at -$150 to -$160/dmt, smelters still actively inquired and made just-in-time procurement due to recent import arbitrage opportunities for silver. Additionally, SMM learned that precious metal prices experienced significant fluctuations this week. Under such special market conditions, smelters maintained a strong wait-and-see sentiment. Despite the short-term pullback in silver prices, their medium and long-term expectations for precious metal price increases have not diminished.
