According to SMM, as the Chinese New Year holiday approaches, some domestic lead-zinc mines successively entered the February winter break. In the imported ore trade market, the TCs for lead concentrates in February remained at -150 to -160 US dollars/dmt. Due to the Chinese New Year holiday, combined with the completion of winter stockpiling by smelters and the suspension of quotations for maintenance and holidays, market trading turned quiet. Entering February 2026, nearing the Chinese New Year holiday and coupled with significant fluctuations in the precious metals market, some smelters extended maintenance and production cut cycles to cautiously observe the market. Individual manufacturers showed intentions to raise TCs quotations due to maintenance and other reasons, but there was no actual high transaction intent. Some manufacturers expected to conduct raw material stocking after the Chinese New Year holiday. After winter stockpiling supplies arrived at smelters in regions such as Henan and Inner Mongolia, smelters' raw material inventories briefly accumulated. Trading in the ore market turned quiet. This week, despite a sharp drop in precious metal prices, the payable indicator for silver contained in lead concentrates did not show significant changes. Amid the volatile silver price trends, the market for silver-bearing raw materials generally adopted a risk-averse wait-and-see approach. Additionally, due to a pullback in bullish expectations for precious metals and reasons such as smelters avoiding risks from declining silver processing profits and lower operating rate expectations, the previously extremely low TCs quotations for lead concentrates were no longer widely accepted by smelters. However, such price changes did not involve low-silver lead ore; TCs for lead concentrates with medium-to-low silver content remained generally stable.
