Zinc hits 10-year high for second day on China output woes
By REUTERS
PUBLISHED: 11:45 BST, 3 October 2017 | UPDATED: 17:15 BST, 3 October 2017
By Jan Harvey
LONDON, Oct 3 (Reuters) - Zinc hit 10-year highs for a second day on Tuesday, reversing earlier losses, as worries over production outages in China pushed up prices, while London Metal Exchange inventories posted another decline.
Prices of the metal used in galvanising steel rose for a fourth straight session as speculators bet environmental inspections would hit output in China.
"It does sound as though the authorities in China are quite serious about this anti-pollution drive," Capital Economics analyst Caroline Bain said.
"(Zinc) is definitely, of the base metals, one of the tightest," she said. "We saw China's imports of refined metal go up strongly in the last two months, and its production of refined metal has fallen slightly so far this year."
Lead also rose to its highest since August 2011.
* ZINC PRICES: Three-month zinc on the London Metal Exchange touched its highest since August 2007 at $3,292 a tonne, before easing back to close at $3,264 a tonne, up 0.9 percent.
* CHINA SHUTDOWNS: About 60 percent of lead-zinc mines were undergoing month-long shutdowns during environment inspections in Sichuan province.
* ZINC STOCKS: LME zinc inventories <MZNSTX-TOTAL> fell by another 1,025 tonnes, data on Tuesday showed, bringing the decline so far this year to 64 percent. One party controlled 50-80 percent of those stocks <0#LME-WHL>, LME data showed.