In terms of SHFE zinc prices, the market should be concerned about zinc concentrate, which is still short of supply.

The nickel prices rose steadily last week. Before the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday, the continuous falling nickel inventory in China and overseas pushed up the nickel prices sharply.

The upstream supply of rare earths continued to be tight. In terms of ore imports, the enterprises in south China are more dependent on ores imported from Myanmar. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic situation in Myanmar has been worrying, the ore traders were pessimistic about the re-opening of the China-Myanmar boarder port in the first quarter of 2022, and they were less interest in selling rare earth ores from Myanmar.

The European energy issues did not worsen last week, but the overall market bullishness remained.

The electricity prices fell to recent lows due to warmer temperature in Europe last week.

SMM believes alumina prices are likely to rally ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday in mid-February to just below 3,000 yuan/mt before downward pressure returns.

SMM sees support for ferrosilicon from both the fundamentals and the capital market.

Barclays will raise copper price forecast in 2018 from $5,725/mt to $6,175/mt, the bank said on Tuesday.

Zijin Mining Group released its production target for major mineral products in 2017, SMM understands.

Shenyang Lianli Copper Co. will construct the largest nonferrous metals new material base in Northeast China, local paper reported.