SHANGHAI, Feb 18 (SMM)—Social inventories of lead ingots across Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Tianjin rose 1,200 mt from February 10 to 43,400 mt as of Thursday February 18. This was up 1,500 mt from Monday February 8.

Workers at most of the primary lead smelters were on duty by turns during the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday, and logistics has started to recover as the holiday came to an end, which helped in-plant inventories to be shipped to social warehouses.

Inventories across major primary lead smelters exceeded 30,000 mt after CNY, and stocks across mainstream secondary lead smelters stood at about 20,000 mt, up about 20,000 mt from the pre-holiday level, an SMM survey showed.

Social inventories are likely to continue to rise in the near term as downstream lead-acid battery makers have just started to resume production.