Social Inventory of Lead Ingots Continued to Decline as the Cargo Holders Sold Out Their Goods and Dowsntream Enterprises Restocked at the End of the Year

SHANGHAI, Dec 30 (SMM) - As of December 30, the social inventory of lead ingots across Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Tianjin was 38,200 mt, down 11,000 mt from December 23 and 7,700 mt from December 26.

According to research, the lead prices continued to increase and hit the highest point at 16,200 yuan/mt at the end of the year. As such, the traders delivered actively and the spot premiums against the SHFE 2302 lead contract expanded to 150-50 yuan/mt. In the second half of this week, traders mainly sold out the goods and both downstream and upstream enterprises stopped the transactions, hence the market transactions decreased and the social inventory of lead ingots extended the decline since last week. Next week, the lead ingot inventory of some smelters may increase due to the suspension of transactions and the New Year’s Day holiday. At the same time, the current price difference between the futures and spots was close to 500 yuan/mt, which prompted the cargo holders to deliver. The deliverable goods will be gradually transferred to the social warehouses after the New Year’s Day and the social inventory of lead ingots may stop falling and increase.