Zinc, lead TCs stable at end-February; market focus turns to annual negotiations

Treatment charges for both zinc and lead concentrates maintained their ranges in the last week of February 2021, with market participants mainly focused on hashing out annual benchmarks for the raw materials.

Fastmarkets assessed the zinc spot concentrate TC, cif China, at $70-85 per tonne on Friday February 26, stable since January 29, when it dropped to a two-and-a-half-year low.
Likewise, the lead spot concentrate TC, high silver, cif China, was assessed at $85-105 per tonne on Friday, unchanged from the previous month's range.
The corresponding assessment for lead spot concentrate TC, low silver, cif China, also remained flat month on month, at $80-100 per tonne on the same day.

Spot zinc and lead tenders were scarce, with the Chinese market still emerging from the Lunar New Year holiday lull, but a major zinc smelter in Peru was understood to have finalized its 2021 annual supply contracts with two big suppliers at $120-150 per tonne on a carriage paid to (cpt) basis, which would be equivalent to around $90 per tonne on...

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