Steady buying of the three-month zinc contract on the London Metal Exchange took the price above $2,000 per tonne on Thursday May 7 for the first time since March 11.
Zinc's outright price on the LME was recently at $2,008.50 per tonne, building on gains made over Wednesday afternoon, while turnover was high at some 4,000 lots exchanged by 10am London time. This comes despite well-stocked LME zinc inventories, with more than 90,000 tonnes on-warrant across registered warehouses. The bulk of LME zinc stocks are in Singapore and Vlissingen. Meanwhile, strong forward buying in LME zinc futures prompted the metal's benchmark cash/three-month spread to flip into backwardation on Wednesday afternoon. The spread has held in a $1 per tonne...