CNY to lower Feb operating rates at galvanising plants to 49%

Operating rates across licensed smelters of secondary lead in Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan and Guizhou stood at 61.11% this week, down 1.62% from the previous week, an SMM survey showed.

Shanghai base metals traded mixed after opening on Thursday morning, as Fed failed to set a timeline for tapering asset purchase, and COVID-19 pandemic made a comeback. Meanwhile, their counterparts on LME mostly went up.

Shanghai base metals were mostly lower on Tuesday morning as investors awaited the release of China's trade data for June. Meanwhile, their counterparts on the LME also fell for the most part.

SMM data showed that social inventories of refined zinc ingots across Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong and Hebei increased 1,700 mt from last Friday July 9 to 122,000 mt as of Monday July 12. The stocks were up 6,200 mt from July 5.

This is a roundup of China's metals weekly inventory as of July 9.

SMM survey showed that the capacity of the galvanising producers sample stood at 37.09 million mt in April and output at 2.46 million mt, and the operating rates at 79.62%, down 0.04 percentage point from the previous month.

Zinc inventories in China fell over the weekend, primarily propelled by a decrease in Shanghai and Guangdong.

An SMM survey showed that the average operating rate across Chinese galvanising plants fell 6.36 percentage points from a month ago to 93.57% in September. Nearly 31 galvanising plants were investigated, and the sample capacity of the survey stood at 10.8 million mt.

The galvanised iron tower sector is expected to give a significant boost to zinc consumption in 2020 as the construction of “new infrastructure” drives the commencement of a large number of ultra-high voltage power grid projects in the second half of the year.

It has been more than 3 months after China is hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, and restrictions on industrial activities and transportation were the harshest in February. During this period, SMM is continuously tracking market recovery on the metals market. Please see our detailed findings for the nonferrous metals sector below. We will keep you posted on the latest happenings via our website www.metal.com and our social media channels on Linkedin and Twitter. Please register for our webinars in March as we continue to connect you with the latest happening in the China ferrous and nonferrous metals market. The next session is happening on Wednesday March 18, 5pm CST, where we present to you a macro update of the resumption of metals industry as China recovers gradually from COVID-19 , with a deep-dive in the ferrous metals markets.