Zinc oxide operating rates rise, expected to have room for rebound next week [SMM zinc oxide weekly review]

Zinc oxide operating rate registered 52.33% this week, up 1.25 percentage points WoW. Inventory side, after the center of zinc prices pulled back this week, some enterprises increased raw material procurement at low prices, driving raw material inventories to edge up; meanwhile, enterprises that had suspended production for maintenance earlier have still been consuming inventories due to incomplete equipment debugging, and finished product inventories declined. The zinc oxide industry operating rate continued to rebound this week, mainly driven by the gradual resumption of production at some enterprises. End-use demand side, the tire and ceramic sectors, which account for a large share, have shown mediocre consumption performance recently; for feed-grade zinc oxide, due to low hog prices, the breeding side has insufficient willingness to expand reproduction, and some farming enterprises sold piglets early, resulting in poor demand for feed-grade zinc oxide; electronic-grade zinc oxide orders are relatively stable. Some enterprises are still in the equipment debugging and production resumption preparation stage this week. With the gradual recovery of related capacity, the zinc oxide industry operating rate is expected to continue to rise to around 53.58% next week with fluctuations.