China zinc production rises to highest since Dec 2017: NBS

SHANGHAI, Sep 18 (SMM) – China’s zinc output rose 18.9% from a year earlier to 528,000 mt in August, the highest monthly production since December 2017, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed.

In the first eight months of 2019, zinc output in China reached 4.03 million mt, up 8.2% from the same period last year.

NBS data also showed that China produced 800,000 mt of copper cathode last month, dipping 0.1% from a month ago but rising 8.1% from a year ago.

Copper cathode output in January-August amounted to 6.15 million mt, up 5.8% year on year.

China’s output of alumina fell in August to the lowest monthly level since November 2018, losing 2.9% from July to 6.04 million mt, according to data from the NBS. This was 3.5% higher than August 2018.

Alumina output in the January-August period totaled 49.88 million mt, with a year-over-year increase of 5.8%.

Production of primary aluminium dipped 0.4% month on month and 0.3% year on year to 2.97 million mt in August, showed NBS data.

This brought primary aluminium output in January-August to 23.47 million mt, up 1.4% from the same period a year earlier.