The alumina refineries in Shanxi, Shandong and Henan mostly experienced production cuts or suspensions due to environmental protection policies, which have totalled 15.02 million mt/year for the moment.

According to SMM data, the weighted average full cost of alumina refineries in China was 2,604 yuan/mt at the end of Q4 2021, a drop of 407 yuan/mt or 13.5% from the end of Q3 2021, but up 14.7% from the same period of 2020.

Operating rates across lead-acid battery producers in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hubei and Hebei provinces remained unchanged from May 14 at 74.21% as of Friday May 21.

Operating rates across primary lead smelters in Henan, Hunan and Yunnan provinces increased 3.6 percentage points from the previous week to 61.3% in the week ended May 21, showed an SMM survey.

Social inventories of silicon metal across Huangpu port, Kunming city and Tianjin port declined 3,000 mt from the previous week to 36,000 mt as of Friday May 21, SMM data showed.

Inventories of refined nickel in the Shanghai bonded areas remained unchanged from a week ago and stood at 8,700 mt as of May 21, showed SMM data.

In the case of the COVID-19 outbreak last year, the global sales of new energy vehicles can still grow against the trend.

New energy industry becomes nickel price driver amid weaker logic of pure nickel substitution by NPI, said Darius Li, senior nickel analyst at SMM.

China's cobalt consumption structure shifted from traditional industry to battery industry, said Serafina Huo, cobalt senior analyst, SMM, citing the flow of cobalt raw materials in China shifted from alloys and magnetic materials to LCO and ternary batteries from 2000 to 2020, and the demand for cobalt from battery sector accounted for 57% in 2020.

SHFE nonferrous metals declined for the most part on Thursday. Copper fell 2.02%, aluminium lost 1.85%, zinc plunged 2.34%, nickel tumbled 3.7% and tin slid 2.04%, while lead gained 0.99%.