China Lead Concentrate Output to Recover in February after Falling in January

SHANGHAI, Feb 15 (SMM) - The average operating rate of lead concentrate mines in SMM’s new survey sample stood at 33.6% in January, down 22.8 percentage points MoM. The average operating rate in the old survey sample stood at 24.5%, a drop of 7.6 percentage points MoM.

Most mines took 7-15 days of break for the CNY holidays, except for a few mines who maintained normal operations during the holiday. Mining and beneficiation activities were disrupted to varying degrees. In particular, some mines in In Inner Mongolia and Tibet were even shut down for 2-3 months due to extremely cold weather in winter. 

Entering February, mines gradually resumed their operations, but the production efficiency was constrained by late return of some employees. SMM estimates that the domestic lead concentrate output will add 22,000 mt in lead content in February and recover to normal level in March. The products will be shipped to the market massively at the end of February or early March.