Social inventory of lead ingots continued to increase before delivery, with subsequent attention to the recent production status of lead smelters [SMM Social Inventory of Lead Ingots]

        SMM News on June 16: According to SMM, as of June 16, the total social inventory of lead ingots in five regions tracked by SMM reached 56,400 mt, an increase of 3,000 mt from June 9 and an increase of 1,600 mt from June 12.

        Today is the delivery day for the SHFE lead 2506 contract. Before the delivery, suppliers continued to transfer and transfer to delivery warehouse. Some social warehouses received lead ingot shipments over the weekend, leading to a continued increase in the social inventory of lead ingots. Based on the open interest of the SHFE lead 2506 contract, the delivery volume of lead ingots in this round is less than 13,000 mt. The existing inventory in social warehouses is sufficient to meet the delivery requirements. Both the delivery volume and the volume of transferred lead ingots are lower than those of last month. A significant reason for this is the widespread production cuts and suspensions by secondary lead enterprises in early June. The rigid demand from downstream enterprises shifted to the primary lead market, causing a decline in the in-plant inventory of primary lead enterprises. Additionally, spot transactions changed from trading at a discount (against the SMM 1# lead average price) last month to trading at a premium this month, with most of the primary lead supply flowing directly to the consumer market. After the completion of this round of SHFE lead deliveries, we need to monitor the progress of maintenance at primary lead smelters, as well as the resumption of production by secondary lead enterprises after the partial recovery of losses in the secondary lead sector.