Holiday maintenance plan at zinc refineries

SHANGHAI, Jan 20 (SMM) — Zinc prices continued to fall from a high level. The national comprehensive TCs for zinc concentrate dropped to 5,080 yuan/metal mt, and the CIF quotation of imported zinc concentrate decreased to $60-70/dry mt. As the profit of smelters shrank, will there be unexpected production cuts during the Spring Festival? See the figure below for details.

Compared with the data from SMM at the beginning of January, the enterprises that cut production unexpectedly and conducted maintenance were mainly smelters in Huayuan area and smelters in Sichuan. The reason for this maintenance and production reduction is still the current high prices of zinc ore and smelters are unwilling to continue full production under low profits or even losses.

For some companies that plan to conduct maintenance in February, the actual time to start maintenance and the expected amount of impact have not yet been determined, and SMM will continue to follow up.

Data source: SMM