Zimbabwe's sole operating lithium sulphate plant, run by a Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt subsidiary, has no capacity to process third-party concentrate just months before the country's export ban takes effect, according to comments from plant officials during a government site visit. No room for outside supply. The government's January 2027 ban on lithium concentrate exports aims to push miners toward domestic refining, lifting export revenue and local employment. Producers have requested more time to build their own processing plants, but authorities have instead directed them to use existing local facilities of which only the Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe Huayou plant is currently operational, and it cannot absorb outside material. Mine manager comment. "We don't have the capacity to process other minerals from outside. Our concentrator plant produces around 400,000 tons a year, so there's no room for other players," said mine manager Mthokozisi Goliath, noting the sulphate plant can only process what its own concentrator supplies. No delay to deadline. Mines minister Polite Kambamura ruled out pushing back the ban: "The January 2027 deadline is still on... We would like to urge all producers to stick to that deadline." Other plants not ready in time. Processing facilities under construction at other Zimbabwean lithium assets are unlikely to be completed before the deadline. Chinese firms have invested roughly $2 billion into Zimbabwe's lithium sector since 2021. SMM View: This tightens the bottleneck facing Zimbabwe's non-Huayou producers heading into January 2027 with Goromonzi at full capacity and rival plants unfinished, miners without their own processing routes face a stark choice between stockpiling concentrate, absorbing steep discounts on any domestic sale, or halting output altogether. This reinforces the case for closely tracking commissioning timelines at competing plants, as delays there directly translate into constrained sulphate supply and potential price support for processed material once the ban takes hold.

[Lead Market Dynamics] On August 7, 2026, China Tower launched its 2026 nationwide centralized procurement tender for valve-regulated sealed lead-acid batteries, with a total procurement scale of 2,214.72 MWh. The tender covers three types of telecom batteries: 2V standard, 12V standard, and 12V front-terminal. The project will award contracts to up to four winning bidders and sets a maximum price per watt-hour. Only original manufacturers with cumulative sales revenue from valve-regulated sealed lead-acid battery products of at least 100 million yuan (tax inclusive) over the past three years are eligible to bid. The deadline for bid document submission is August 14. The lead-acid battery market for telecom backup power has ushered in an annual large-scale procurement opportunity.

[SMM Steel] India Steel Daily: Export Offers Firm, Domestic Billet Prices Stable [India] On Monday, the Indian steel market was overall sluggish, and due to cautious purchasing, domestic semi-finished steel prices stayed largely stable. Mandi Gobindgarh MS billet and ingot prices held firm at $443/mt (42,200 rupees/mt). In the flat steel market, India's domestic hot-rolled coil (HRC) price was about $598/mt (57,000 rupees/mt) ex-works Mumbai. It is reported that Indian HRC sellers remain resistant to enquiries from Southeast Asian buyers, with seller target offers at about $515/mt CFR, higher than current buyer bids. In some markets, domestic ingot prices weakened. Specifically, Bhavnagar ingot prices fell by $2/mt (200 rupees/mt) to $423/mt (40,300 rupees/mt); Bhiwadi prices fell by $3/mt (300 rupees/mt) to $427/mt (40,700 rupees/mt). India's billet export offers are reportedly around $455/mt FOB, but market trading activity remains limited.

According to the latest data from SMM, the comprehensive operating rate of China’s copper bar enterprises recorded 44.26% in July, down 1.83 percentage points MoM and 0.56 percentage points YoY.

[Black Mass Imports: Policy Channel Open, Yet Market Circulation Still Faces Multiple Bottlenecks] On June 1, 2025, a joint announcement by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the General Administration of Customs officially took effect, removing compliant waste lithium-ion battery powder from the Catalogue of Solid Wastes Forbidden from Import and subjecting it to import management as ordinary goods. This marked a long-awaited policy breakthrough for China’s lithium battery recycling industry—prior to this, the channel for raw materials from outside China had never been legally accessible, and the industry relied almost entirely on domestically retired power batteries and off-cuts from battery factories.

According to the latest SMM data, in July, the overall operating rate of domestic copper billet enterprises recorded 44.26%, down 1.83 percentage points MoM and down 0.56 percentage points YoY , with industry production staying at low levels and the pattern of divergence between large and small enterprises continuing. By enterprise size, the operating rate for large enterprises in the sample was 51.74% in July, still relying on long-term contracts and raw material channels to maintain strong production resilience, but it pulled back from June; the operating rate for medium-sized enterprises was 33.82%, and for small enterprises, it was only 22.96%. In July, operating rates for large, medium, and small enterprises trended down in tandem, with small and medium-sized enterprises hit significantly harder than top-tier players , and the polarization in the industry continued. Raw material constraints remained the core factor pressuring industry production . Controls on reverse invoicing for secondary resources continued to tighten, domestic supply of compliant secondary brass tightened, and enterprises turned to imported secondary brass to supplement raw materials, but supply outside China was tight, import offers stayed high, and raw material procurement costs stayed elevated. Brass raw material prices rose, but the downstream end-use market was fiercely competitive, with the finished product side unable to pass on costs synchronously, and profit margins for copper billet processing enterprises continued to be squeezed. Small and medium-sized processing plants were under financial pressure and faced greater difficulty in obtaining raw materials; voluntary production controls and cuts were widespread. On the demand side, in July, the industry was in a traditional consumption off-season , with procurement from traditional downstream brass end-users such as plumbing valves and hardware bathroom fittings remaining weak; downstream players mostly restocked on an as-needed basis, and willingness to proactively stockpile was weak, resulting in overall mediocre transactions for brass billets. While structural orders for copper billets used in new energy and AI cooling provided some support, growth was limited and insufficient to offset the demand weakness in traditional sectors. Affected by weak orders, finished product inventories at copper billet enterprises stayed at relatively high levels, and in-plant destocking progressed sluggishly, further weighing on enterprises' production willingness. Looking ahead to August, pressure from the traditional off-season will intensify further ; feedback from SMM sample enterprises indicates that the tight raw material supply is unlikely to improve significantly in the short term, and there are no signs yet of a substantive recovery in end-use demand. SMM expects that the overall operating rate of domestic copper billet enterprises will fall 2.04 percentage points MoM to 42.22% in August, and will be down 1.6 percentage points YoY . By size, large enterprises will see a slight decline in production due to insufficient new orders despite some existing order support; small and medium-sized enterprises will continue to face dual pressures from high-priced raw materials and inadequate end-use orders, with production remaining under pressure. Overall, short-term raw material bottlenecks and off-season demand exert dual pressure. China's copper billet market is expected to remain in the doldrums, and the recovery of industry operations and profits will still need to wait for the easing of raw material supply and the arrival of the traditional downstream consumption peak season.