LCO Average Price Falls 28% YoY in Feb and to Drop Further in Mar

LME zinc: LME zinc prices fell slightly early last week after a series of economic data was released.

#0 zinc was mainly quoted with premiums of 0 yuan/mt over the SHFE 2304 zinc.

Last Friday, iron ore futures fluctuated upwards, and the most-traded I2305 contract closed at 919 yuan/mt.

The average price of Ni 1.5% ore stood at $72/wmt on a CIF basis last Friday, flat from a week earlier.

Quotes of battery-grade nickel sulphate were 39,600-40,300 yuan/mt last Friday.

According to SMM survey of 34 independent EAF-based steel mills that produce construction steel, their operating rates averaged 48.18% as of February 28.

According to SMM research, a cold-rolled coil factory in south China started a one-week production suspension for maintenance today.

On February 9, the guide price of solar back silver paste stood at 3,589-3,689 yuan/kg.

Huayou Cobalt issued an announcement on investment that the company plans to jointly build Huashan Nickel-Cobalt with an annual output of 120,000 mt of Ni content and nickel-cobalt hydroxide hydrometallurgy project with Glaucous through its wholly-owned subsidiary Huatuo International Development Pte. Ltd.

LME lead opened at $2,056/mt and rose by 2.34% to $2,098/mt overnight, after hitting the lowest point of $2,042/mt and the highest point of $2,099.5/mt. During the Asian trading hours, affected by the SHFE lead, LME lead fluctuated between $2,050-2070/mt while in the European trading hours,  LME lead hit one-month low amid the increase of US dollar and then rose up due to the increase of SHFE lead. The most traded SHFE 2207 lead contract opened at 14,960 yuan/mt overnight and rose up to 15,195 yuan/mt as the lead ingot warrant inventories declined by 8,000 mt, and finally closed at 15,180 yuan/mt, up 1.71%. The open interest decreased by 5,454 lots from the previous trading day to 44,274 lots.