SHANGHAI, Jul 11 (SMM) – Secondary lead smelters in Jiangxi province are only likely to resume operations at the end of July at the earliest, after local government kicked off a new round of inspections last Friday.

They resumed daily production of some 200 mt temporarily last week when central government's environmental reviews came to an end, SMM learned. 

While the fresh round of probe is scheduled to last until July 25, suspension at secondary lead smelters is set to extend to the end of this month as downstream consumption from lead-acid battery plants will be affected.

Some local lead-acid battery plants were under full suspension again from July 6, sources told SMM. At the beginning of this month, they resumed their output to some 50% after the previous round of reviews ended.