RE:RE:RE:Zinc down to $1.09Sorry, suppose I misunderstood. Thought you were referring to locking in a deal with a buyer to purchase at the metals from them at $1.15.
I don't know if they can play the futures market the way you're describing. Shorting zinc on the futures market would require them to be able to deliver the metals if the buyer calls in their options.
There's two problems with that. Obviously, if the price of the metals goes down, those options will never be called, and they'll simply pocket the premium they're charging - but that premium is usually pretty small. On a contract for delivery at $1.15 (IE effectively the daily price a few days ago), perhaps they could charge a cent or two premium, which they'd collect on sale of the options, and which would represent their free money if the price goes down - but considering they would be losing much more, it would represent only a minor compensation.
Secondly, given that they already have a deal with Glencore to sell them raw metals, I'm not sure what they would do in the event that the prices either remain steady or go up, and the buyer of the options calls them in. In that event, they'd have to purchase the metals at market prices in order to deliver them to the buyer, which could be extremely difficult to pull off.