Japan Official Lead Price Hit Record 489,000 yen/t

Mitsubishi Materials announced on Tuesday the firm raised the official lead ingot price by 46,000 yen to 489,000 yen per tonne for domestic shipment in October. The latest price exceeded record 468,000 yen marked on 23 July, 2007 to reflect the upsurge of overseas lead market and cheaper yen against US dollar. The monthly average would be 478,500 yen without any more revision within October.

Lead settlement at London Metal Exchange hit record US$ 3,804 per tonne on Friday. On Monday LME lead settlement kept strong at US$ 3,740 on Monday and rose to above US$ 3,770 at afternoon trading of the same day. The telegraphic transfer selling rate was 118.36 yen per US dollar on Tuesday. Japanese yen became the weakest against US dollar in late 2 months.

LME lead price maintains strong with global inventory at historically low level and productive troubles at major lead mines, while lead demand is active worldwide mainly for automotive batteries in emerging countries such as China. LME lead spot price more than doubled from around US$ 1,600 at the beginning of this year. Japanese domestic official price almost doubled from 249,000 yen at the beginning of 2007 and became higher than domestic official zinc ingot price by 79,000 yen.