[SMM lead data on 14 July]

China produced 848,500 mt of copper cathode in March, up 8.42% MoM and down 5.79% YoY, according to SMM statistics.

China’s lithium carbonate output was 18,609 mt in February, a month-on-month decrease of 2% but a year-on-year increase of 51%.

Li Xinchuang, secretary of the party committee of the Metallurgical Industry Planning Research Institute and vice president of the China Iron and Steel Industry Association, said that from the recent response from industry participants, the crude steel production regulation policy is likely to continue in 2022.

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

According to SMM survey, the operating rates of magnesium powder plants were suppressed under the impact of Beijing Winter Olympics. Some plants in Tianjin and Shanxi cut the production, and the overall output declined by 30%.

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.

SMM data shows that domestic polysilicon output stood at 42,800 mt in November, an increase of 5.9% month on month and 20.2% year on year.