Commodity Market Report
Global lead short-term outlook December 2022
Report summary
Metal and concentrate pricing are ending 2022 at strong levels. Short-term macroeconomic prospects are certainly not entirely sanguine and without obvious downside risks, but recent developments - the roll-back of Covid restrictions in China and hopes that interest rates can turn following an easing of US inflation - are supportive of lead consumption growth accelerating in 2023. Mine production should also pick up in 2023, led by the start-up of the Abra project, and, so long as smelting does not emerge as a bottleneck. metal supply growth should match that of consumption. This should leave metal and concentrate stocks at the end of 2023 little changed, with notable surpluses only set to begin emerging in 2024.
Table of contents
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Supply-demand balances
- Changes to forecast
- Europe
- China
- Concentrate market
- Project development
- Corporate Activity
- Smelter news
Tables and charts
This report includes 17 images and tables including:
- Lead outperforms most of the other LME metals
- Short covering helps lift price
- Seasonal Shanghai stock build getting underway
- Refined lead premia and scrap prices
- Price forecasts and global quarterly supply/demand balances (kt)
- Quarterly consumption
- Concentrate availability has been sufficiently tight for spot TCs to edge lower despite the arbitrage remaining negative in December
- Concentrate market TCs
- Acid's price has failed to maintain a recovery and it therefore remains well below where it started the year (as well as its peak)
- Up 6-7% for the year, imports have generally been softer recently despite a strong outcome in November
- Lead mine capability, market adjustment and production (kt Pb)
- Global refined lead consumption (kt Pb)
- Global lead mine production (lead in concentrate, kt Pb)
- Global refined lead production (kt Pb)
- Global primary and secondary refined lead production (kt Pb)
- Lead stocks, prices and premia
- Global lead supply and demand (kt)
What's included
This report contains:
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