The lead-acid battery market is currently in the off-season, with recyclers reporting low collection volumes at stores and fierce competition among peers. Secondary lead smelters indicate that the arrivals of scrap batteries are poor, making it difficult to lower procurement quotes. Currently, the mainstream procurement price for waste electric vehicle batteries, excluding tax, ranges from 9,900 to 10,100 yuan/mt, with daily arrivals amounting to a dozen or so trucks, indicating relatively tight raw material inventory.
Additionally, downstream lead-acid battery producers have high lead ingot inventory, with raw material inventory lasting over 10 days being common. Coupled with the low number of sales orders for finished batteries, their willingness to purchase is weak. This has led to difficulties in selling lead ingots, with primary lead being sold at a discount to the SMM 1# lead average price on an ex-factory basis, and secondary refined lead being forced to offer discounted quotes. Due to high costs, secondary lead enterprises are reluctant to sell, resulting in few quotations.
According to multiple secondary lead smelters, the current loss per ton of secondary refined lead is as high as 600-800 yuan/mt. Under these market conditions, enterprises have low production enthusiasm, with many undergoing maintenance and shutdowns in April.
Due to unsatisfactory raw material arrivals, many enterprises have expressed expectations of production cuts in May. Despite plans for new capacity to come online in May, overall, it is still difficult to reverse the established trend of declining production in May.
