LONDON: Zinc prices hit their highest in nearly three months on Friday on worries that weak refined output in China could send the global market into deficit.
Lead also hit a three-month peak after inventories dwindled, but the wider industrial metals market was weighed down by worries about global growth.
"The big question in zinc is smelter utilisation in China. It's really finely balanced, it's on a knife-edge," said Oliver Nugent, analyst at Citigroup in London.
"If you make a tiny change in your assumption for utilisation this year, you swing from a balanced market to a big deficit."
Price dynamics in London and Shanghai futures markets had opened up an arbitrage window, so investors were buying on the London Metal Exchange to send to China, Nugent added.
That showed up in inventory data on Friday, with weekly Chinese zinc stocks rising and LME levels falling.
Benchmark LME zinc reached its strongest since Oct. 29 at $2,656.50 a tonne but later pared gains. Zinc, untraded in official open outcry activity, was bid up 0.04 percent at $2,641.
ZINC STOCKS: On-warrant LME zinc inventories <MZNSTX-TOTAL>, those not earmarked for delivery, have tumbled by half this month to the lowest levels since October 2007. Stocks on the Shanghai Futures Exchange <ZN-STX-SGH> climbed 17.2 percent to 34,510 tonnes over the past week.
LEAD: Three-month LME lead rose 0.8 percent to trade at $2,088.50 a tonne in official rings, its highest since Oct. 16.
LEAD STOCKS: LME lead inventories <MPBSTX-TOTAL> have shed a fifth over the past two weeks, sliding to 82,975 tonnes, their lowest since June 2009.
GROWTH CONCERNS: Markets were pressured as hundreds of economists in Reuters polls indicated that a synchronised global economic slowdown was under way and any escalation in the US-China trade war would trigger a sharper downturn.
DOLLAR: Helping to partly offset growth concerns, the dollar index declined, making commodities priced in the greenback cheaper for buyers using other currencies.
COPPER: Three-month LME copper rose 0.1 percent to $5,925 a tonne in official trading, with some dealers pointing to short-covering ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays in China next month.
SCRAP: China's imports of scrap copper from the United States rose in December from the previous month, customs data showed, snapping six straight months of declines.
PRICES: Aluminium was bid down 0.3 percent to $1,885 a tonne in official rings, nickel traded up 0.1 percent at $11,780 and tin fell 1.6 percent to $20,600.
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