Secondary Lead: SHFE Lead Prices Dropped from High, but Downstream Purchasing Demand Did not Pick up Significantly

SHANGHAI, Aug 1 (SMM) - During last Friday's night session, the SHFE 2209 lead contract fluctuated sideways before sustaining a slow decline. The contract dropped sharply to 15,125 yuan/mt during today's morning session and remained rangebound at low levels thereafter. As of noon, open interest of the SHFE 2209 lead contract was 61,222 lots, down 1,914 lots from last Friday, while that of SHFE lead contracts totalled 85,118 lots, down 5,034 lots from yesterday. In the spot market of secondary lead, the absolute prices of smelters during the early trading remained unchanged from last Friday, with some companies slightly lowering their offers. On the whole, the secondary refined lead prices stood at a discount of 250-200 yuan/mt against the average price of SMM #1 lead ingots. However, most enterprises reported that the downstream demand has not picked up significantly, and some enterprises slightly lowered their prices to promote the sales, but with little effect.