hidden stocks, page-13

Been in the international zinc marketing business for 25 years ( now retired). Yes, hidden reportable stock do exist, often held by the big trading houses ( not direct users of the metal) and there is usually some stock held by parties as collateral against financing loans, etc. But I would not get too worried about it, in the long run it does not change the overall supply/demand equation which is, to state the obvious, skewing very sharply towards supply deficit. Crunch time will be next year when Century Mine runs out of ore, that reduces supply by 500,000 tonnes metal per annum. Global demand is around 13-14 million tonnes per annum, growing at 2 -3% per annum, and this growth has not changed through all the price cycles. It is extremely unlikely other zinc mines are able to ramp up production to meet the deficit ( in fact a number of other largish zinc mines are facing declining output), and so far as I know there are no other new mines coming on stream that will cover the looming deficit gap. IBG's Citronen is perfectly poised to take advantage of this. What I especially like is the involvement of China Non-Ferrous which no doubt will mean matters are expedited once we get the mining(so called "exploitation") license.
By the way, zinc's uses which are primarily galvanizing, diecasting, zinc chemicals, brass, do not face substitution threats. Over time, certain applications where zinc was historically used that were substitutionable have been replaced by alternatives ( aluminium, plastics, etc). Nowadays, zinc uses are those where there is basically no longer any threat from substitution, since the uses require the unique attributes of the metal.