Lead

Lead is a dense, toxic, bluish-gray metallic element, and is the heaviest stable element. Lead was one of the first known metals. The ancients used lead in face powders, rouges, mascaras, paints, condiments, wine preservatives, and water supply plumbing. The Romans were slowly poisoned from lead because of its diverse daily usage.

Lead is usually found in ore with zinc, silver, and most often copper. The most common lead ore is galena, containing 86.6% lead. Cerussite and angleside are other common varieties of lead. More than half of the lead currently used comes from recycling.

Lead is used in building construction, bullets and shot, tank and pipe lining, storage batteries, and electric cable sheathing. Lead is used extensively as a protective shielding for radioactive material, i.e., X-ray apparatus, because of its high density and nuclear properties. Lead is also part of solder, pewter, and fusible alloys.

Lead futures and options trade at the London Metal Exchange (LME). The lead futures contract calls for the delivery of 25 metric tons of at least 99.970% purity lead ingots (pigs). The contract is priced in terms of US dollars per metric ton. Lead first started trading on the LME in 1903.

Prices – Lead prices took off in the latter half of 2003 along with the rest of the basic metals complex. Lead prices between 2000 and the middle of 2003 bounced back and forth within a range of approximately $400 to $520 per metric ton. However, in mid-2003, lead prices entered a major bull market and rallied from the $500 area all the way up to approximately $850 by the end of the year, a rally of about 70%.

Supply – World smelter production of lead (both primary and secondary) in 2002 fell –1.2% to 6.390 million metric tons from 6.470 million metric tons in 2001, but was only modestly lower than the record production level of 6.580 million metric tons in 2000. The world’s largest smelter producers of lead (both primary and secondary) in 2002 were the US with 21.6% of world production, followed by China with 20%, Germany with 6.1%, and the UK with 5.8%.

US mine production of recoverable lead fell to a 6-year low of 440,000 metric tons in 2002 from 454,000 in 2001. Missouri was responsible for 97% of US production, with the remainder produced mainly by Idaho and Montana. Lead recovered from scrap in the US (secondary production) fell to a 6-year low of 1.106 million metric tons in 2002 from 1.113 million metric tons in 2001. That is more than twice the amount of lead produced in the US from mines (primary production). The value of US refined lead production in 2002 was $252 million, down from $279 million in 2001 and well below the record high of $668 million posted back in 1979.

Demand – US lead consumption in 2002 rose slightly to 1.673 million metric tons from 1.652 million metric tons in 2001, and that was only slightly below the record consumption level of 1.680 million metric tons posted in 1999.

Trade – The US relied on imports for 18% of its lead consumption in 2002. US imports of lead pigs and bars in 2002 fell to a 9-year low of 210,000 metric tons. US lead exports in 2002 were comprised by ore concentrate (241,000 metric tons), scrap (106,000 metric tons), unwrought lead (31,400 metric tons), and wrought lead (11,700 metric tons).