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

The SHFE nickel continued to rise strongly last week, as the LME and SHFE inventories both dropped to extremely low levels and are expected to keep falling.

The most active SHFE 2203 copper contract prices are expected to move between 69,900-72,000/mt this week, and LME copper will trade between $9,750-10,050/mt.

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.

China’s production of antimony oxide is expected to fall sharply this year due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, according to SMM’s senior minor metals analyst Paton Huang.

Vital Materials, one of the biggest minor metals producer in the world, was the mystery buyer of several batches of minor metals stocks previously held by the now-defunct Fanya Metal Exchange

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.