China with having about 30% of the world’s zinc production turned into the largest zinc producer. Also, this country accounts for 48% of zinc metal consumption in the world, therefore it’s considered the biggest consumer of this metal, too.
China’s zinc production in April has 1.28% reduction in 2022 and in the same year just one month later has faced 3.79 increase, despite this fact that amount of production in June was lower than expected, the total production of these two months was able to solve it due to increase in May production.
China for about a decade had been at the top of all zinc producers all over the world and it’s also now. This country’s production is twice Peru’s, the second-largest zinc producer in the world. Australia and the USA are the other countries that have filled the next ranks. China as the major zinc consumer has got 18% of this element’s deposit which it’s a significant number, but it’s far less than the country’s share of more than 30% of the global zinc production.
Almost all zinc is obtained from sulfur which usually includes cadmium lead and other metals like iron and silver. Widely sulfide ore in the world that 90% of its production is made of raw material and 10% of it, is obtained from recycling.
About 55% of zinc application is used in different alloys such as brass, galvanized steel and steel electroplating and zinc is used as anti-rust in metals. Also it is used widely in auto industry and in die-casting; and the biggest part of zinc demand is for galvanize industry.
Due to this fact that China’s known as the largest steel producer and in other zinc consuming industries has extensive activity; it has focused on producing of this material while imports it, too; it is expected that reduction of zinc production due to the implementation of stricter environmental laws in the coming years in China lead to imports growth. However, the decrease in production doesn’t seem to be very significant.
According to figure 1 and study about zinc production data during quarter in 2021 and 2022, in both years the highest production of second quarter of the year happened in June. Also production has grown in May 2022 compared to the same period in previous year. In the second quarter in 2022 due to depreciation of Covid19 limitation and growth in economic activity in China, zinc production trend has increased that lead to resumption of production in some factories including Yunnan, a great smelter, and increase in utilization rate in some smelters and the return of some small factories to their normal production level.
The production amount in May 2022 compared to the same month in 2021, has got a 3% deprecation that has reached from 567.000 tonnes to 549.000 tonnes because of maintenance turnaround of a factory in Shaanxi province accompanied drop in production and has a negative effect on China’s total zinc supply. Also, a big smelter in Hunan, were repairing and suspending a small smelter in mid-May has also prevented further increases this month; there’s also a slight decrease in the production of other secondary smelters due to the problems with raw material.
With the reduction of quarantine and an increase in economic activity in June, some of China’s factories resume their production but failure in returning the production to the normal level has caused a decrease this month. In addition, it’s expected that due to the continued shutdown of some units due to the major repairs, the total production of zinc in China will continue to face decrease in July.
As figure 2 shows and with regard figure 1, we can find out, although there are differences between production levels in two different months in 2021 and 2022, but cumulative production level in these months was equal. So that the biggest deduction occurred in June with less than 0.27% and also the biggest increase in cumulative production also happened in May with only 0.33%. This assessment shows that periodic repairs in zinc smelters have been mainly foreseen and planned because it hasn’t harmed the total production of zinc.