Global Lead Market Ends Jan-Aug '17 in Deficit of 119 kt

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The October edition of the ‘Lead and Zinc Statistics Bulletin’ published by the International Lead and Zinc Study Group (ILZSG) indicates that global refined Lead market ended in deficit during the initial eight months of the current year. The report provides an analysis of the world refined lead supply and usage for the period from January to August this year.

The provisional data released by ILZSG indicates that world lead metal demand exceeded supply, thereby pushing the market to a deficit of 119,000 tonnes during the opening eight months of 2017. Meantime, the total reported lead inventories declined marginally by 28,000 tonnes over the same period.

The lead mine production reported increase in China. India too reported significant increase in mine output. The other major producer to report jump in mine output was Kazakhstan. However, the increase in production was partially offset by sharp decline in production by Australia. The overall global lead mine production soared nearly 6.8% during Jan-Aug ’17 when compared with the corresponding eight-month period in 2016. The world lead mine output during the five-month period this year totaled 3.381 million tonnes as compared with 3.166 million tonnes during the corresponding period in 2016.

The refined lead metal production during Jan-Aug ’17 totaled 7.659 million tonnes, significantly higher by over 4% when compared with the 7.357 million tonnes output during corresponding period in 2016. The refined lead metal production reported significant jump in China. The rise in output by other countries including India and the Republic of Korea too contributed to the yearly metal output growth. On the other hand, the US production fell sharply by 10.1%.

The global demand for refined lead metal increased sharply by 6.4% to 7.778 million tonnes during January to August this year. Chinese apparent usage surged higher by 12.4%. The European apparent usage increased modestly by 3.5%. The refined metal demand in the United States too reported a jump of over 3% during the first eight months of 2017.

The Chinese imports of lead contained in lead concentrates totaled 480,000 tonnes, declining by nearly 4% over the previous year. The net imports of refined lead metal by the country amounted to 63,000 tonnes. It must be noted that the initial eight months of 2016 had recorded net exports of nearly 12,000 tonnes.

The ILZSG preliminary data indicates that monthly global lead mine output totaled 398.1 kt during the month of August this year alone. The global refined zinc metal production totaled 946.6 kt, whereas global zinc usage totaled 951.2 kt during the month.