End-use demand underperforms, zinc oxide operating rates edge down [SMM Zinc Oxide Weekly Review]

This week, the operating rate of zinc oxide was recorded at 55.73%, down 0.92 percentage points WoW. In terms of inventory, affected by the upcoming holiday, zinc oxide plants engaged in some pre-holiday stockpiling, and inventory edged up. The decline in the operating rate of zinc oxide this week was mainly due to some enterprises being dragged by weak end-use consumption and gradually entering production halts for maintenance. From the perspective of end-use demand performance, in the rubber-grade zinc oxide segment, tire enterprise orders were overall weak, and purchases of zinc oxide remained at just-in-time levels; orders in the desulfurization sector performed poorly, with demand remaining sluggish; electronic-grade zinc oxide orders were relatively stable overall; feed-grade zinc oxide demand recovered somewhat from the earlier period, but the overall level remained below the same period last year. Looking ahead to next week, considering that some enterprises under maintenance have not yet resumed production, while the improvement in end-use demand is limited, the operating rate of zinc oxide enterprises is expected to fluctuate around 55.36%.