August 16 (LTIT) – Primary lead output from Henan shrank this week, as heavy rainfall caused the breakdown of production equipment at a smelter.

An SMM survey showed that the average operating rate across primary lead smelters in Henan slipped 2 percentage points from the previous week to stand at 77.1% in the week ended August 16.

The rate across Henan, Hunan and Yunnan, however, dipped only 0.3 percentage point to 60.4%, as greater output from Yunnan largely offset the losses after a smelter recovered to full capacity.

Operating rate across Yunnan primary lead smelters climbed 3.7 percentage points to 42.8% this week, while that for Hunan remained unchanged at 43.4%.

Smelters such as Inner Mongolia Xing’an Silver & Lead and Yunnan Mengzi will conduct month-long maintenance in September, SMM learned, which is expected to impact output by a combined volume of 15,000 mt.