Good Fundamentals for LME Zinc, with LME Inventory Slipping to New Low

On the one hand, Teck Resources has signed an annual zinc concentrate contract with a 45% increase in TCs to $230/dmt. An escalation clause was included: if the prices of zinc exceed $3,800/mt, TCs will rise by $0.05/mt for every $1/mt increase in the prices of LME zinc, but if the zinc prices fall, TCs will remain unchanged (the same as the 20%/80% price sharing scheme in China).

Total zinc ingots inventories across seven major markets in China stood at 278,000 mt as of April 8, up 5,200 mt from April 1, down 300 mt from March 6. Domestic inventories increased.

SMM China lead ingot inventory across five major markets totalled 99,800 mt as of Friday April 8, up 400 mt from last Friday April 1 and 500 mt from Wednesday April 6.

The total inventory of HRC across social warehouses and steel makers in China stood at 3.58 million mt as of April 7, up 28,300 mt or 0.8% on the week, a decrease of 0.39% on the year.

The nickel ore inventory at Chinese ports dipped 142,000 wmt from a week earlier to 8.45 million wmt as of January 21.

SMM data showed that China's social inventories of aluminium across eight consumption areas dropped 23,000 mt on the week to 776,000 mt as of January 6.

The moves of SHFE and LME have been heading toward different directions recently. As of December 8, LME lead has been falling for five consecutive sessions. SHFE lead, on the other hand, rallied strongly after falling for two days in a row, and rose 1.88% to 15,175 yuan/mt to close the day.

Market focus this week includes the readings of the manufacturing PMI in the Eurozone in November and the Markit manufacturing PMI in the United States in November; the one-year loan market interest rate as of November 22 in China. On the events front, the Federal Reserve FOMC will release the minutes of the monetary policy meeting this Thursday; Bank of England Governor Bailey will deliver a speech this Friday.

SMM data showed that China's social inventories of aluminium across eight consumption areas rose 31,000 mt on the week to 1.01 million mt as of November 4.

The social inventories of silicon metal across Huangpu port, Kunming city and Tianjin port increased 3,000 mt from the previous week to 58,000 mt as of Friday October 15.