Factors such as maintenance and inventory transfer intertwined, causing finished product inventories of primary lead enterprises to decline again [SMM Weekly Review of Primary Lead Inventories]

        It is understood that as of July 17, the in-plant inventory of primary lead delivery brands was 7,300 mt, a decrease of 6,100 mt WoW.

Recently, some primary lead smelters in Henan have been undergoing maintenance, further tightening the regional supply of lead ingots. Meanwhile, lead prices have continued to decline, and losses in secondary lead smelting have widened again, reducing the enthusiasm of smelters for selling. Secondary refined lead was quoted at a premium of 0-100 yuan/mt over the SMM #1 lead price ex-factory, creating an inverted price relationship with primary lead. Secondary lead has almost no price advantage over primary lead, so downstream enterprises have shifted more of their just-in-time procurement to primary lead, depleting the smelters' in-plant inventories. In addition, as the SHFE lead 2507 contract entered delivery this week, suppliers transferred lead ingots from in-plant inventories to delivery warehouses, which was also one of the reasons for the decline in finished product inventories of primary lead smelters.