This week (August 1-7, 2025), the average operating rate of primary lead smelters in the three provinces rose by 3.5 percentage points WoW, reaching 67.4%.
This week, production activities at medium-to-large smelters in Henan Province resumed, with a slight increase in production, becoming the main driver of production growth. Meanwhile, the operating situation in Yunnan and Hunan provinces remained stable. Specifically, in Hunan Province, a company that had reduced production by half due to routine maintenance is expected to resume normal operations next week, so there was no significant change in the total production of the region this week. In Yunnan Province, despite some plants undergoing maintenance, the overall production situation remained stable, and the companies under maintenance plan to restart their production lines in late August. In addition to the three aforementioned provinces, a smelter in a certain location in North China announced that it would conduct regular maintenance work at the end of August; a company in Central China stated that its crude lead department would enter the routine maintenance stage at the end of Q3, but there were no temporary changes to the production schedule of primary lead; furthermore, a company in east China revealed that it plans to implement a longer-term equipment maintenance in Q4.
