SHFE nonferrous metals closed mixed on Wednesday, as copper, aluminium, nickel and tin reversed a pullback at the open. Nickel jumped 1.9%, tin rose 0.6% and copper gained 0.4%, while aluminim dipped 0.1%, zinc fell 0.8% and lead dropped 1.2%.

Social inventories of lead ingots in China continued to trend downsides this week, but the decline slowed down from a week ago due to rising supplies of secondary lead.

Shanghai base metals, except for tin, opened higher on Friday morning, as oil prices skyrocketed overnight on hopes that Saudi Arabia and Russia could reach a deal.

SHFE nonferrous metals, except for tin, relinquished the increase from the previous day, with lead leading the losses and ending down 1.51%

Shanghai base metals were higher for the most part in early morning trade on Friday, while most of their counterparts on the London Metal Exchange were mixed. LME tin dived more than 7% to a new more than one-decade trough, while its SHFE counterpart plunged nearly 5% to its lowest in close to four years.

London base metals cruised higher across the board in early morning trade on Wednesday, rebounding from sharp losses on Tuesday. Following overnight plunges in London base metals, Shanghai base metals opened broadly lower.

On the Shanghai Futures Exchange, copper closed the day up 0.3% and aluminium gained 0.4%. Tin tumbled nearly 3% to lead the be worst performer, nickel dropped 1.1%, lead fell 0.9% and zinc slipped 0.6%. Base metals on the London Metal Exchange extended the rally in European trading hours. The comeback was strong, with nickel jumping more than 7% on the day as of 18:30 Beijing time.  

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.

An SMM survey showed that operating rate across lead-acid battery producers in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hubei and Hebei provinces averaged 48.09% in the week ended March 6, up 4.17 percentage points from last week.

Lead smelters delayed their post-holiday resumption due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Major producers such as Hunan Yuteng and Yunnan Zhenxing prolonged their suspension after maintenance and did not recover operation until late-February.