Asian Metal visits Yuguang, Wanyang, Jinli, Xinling and Zhicheng

Dina Yu, Senior Analyst of Base Metals Department and Olive Pu, Specialist of Marketing Department from Asian Metal visited some lead-zinc smelting enterprises in central China’s Henan province and deeply talked about lead-zinc market with them. Though the lead-zinc market witnessed no signs of improvement of market fundamental at the end of July, sudden skyrocket of lead prices aroused wide attention and discussion among the market participants. Lead smelting enterprises in Henan kept relatively stable production and actively reduced their stocks at the end of July, so liquidity of lead ingot on the spot market might tighten and lead prices would remain firm in August.

Asian Metal paid a visit to Wanyang Group on the morning of July 31st and discussed the current situation of lead market with the company. The general manager Qiang Lu and the director Lei from the futures department then stated that the company has experienced a full load production since the very beginning of this year, maintaining its operating rate at top levels among the peers.

Asian Metal visited Yuguang Gold & Lead Co., Ltd in the afternoon on the same day. Xiaodong Li, director of sales department introduced lead-zinc production status of the company in detail. He remarked that due to the tight supply of lead concentrate in domestic market and the low processing fees, the company increased the output of secondary lead this year. Based on the stable supply, favorable credit and high quality of lead-zinc products, the company has been awarded as outstanding supplier for years. In the end, he predicted that driven by the buoying of speculating procurement, the lead-zinc price would stay high in the short-term.

After visiting Yuguang, Asian Metal was invited to Henan Gold Rakem Lead Co., Ltd. and had an extensive communication on current lead ingot market situation with the sales manager Chuanxin Wang. Wang thought that influenced by the large amounts of capital inflow, the lead ingot prices has risen sharply; however, there were still no positive signs in the market fundamental. The company sold the lead ingot when the price was high and they had small amounts of stocks right now. The company is under full load production at present.

On the morning of August 1st, Asian Metal called on Xinling Refining Co., Ltd. and widely talked about lead ingot and lead concentrate market with Quanlu Feng, vice-general manager of the company and Yonggang He, manager of its Shanghai Office. After the maintenance during July, the company just resumed production. Feng said that the company is now holding a high-level of lead concentrate stock which can meet the need for the production in August. Feng added that even though the lead concentrate supply in northern China has increased slightly, the processing fees were still at low level; therefore, the smelting plants couldn’t make many profits from it. As for the future trend for lead market, Feng and He both held optimistic attitudes.

On the afternoon that day, Asian Metal visited Zhicheng Gold & Lead Co., Ltd. Caicheng Zhang, chief operating officer of the company introduced the company’s lead production situation in detail. He cited that the production is stable and the lead ingot stocks are at low level. He expected that lead prices are likely to fluctuate around RMB14,500/t.