Hi Towie.Yes Towie I have posted this somewhere else.Lead Climbs...

Hi Towie.

Yes Towie I have posted this somewhere else.

Lead Climbs to 2-Month High in London as China Exports Slump

July 22 (Bloomberg) -- Lead rose to a two-month high in London as exports from China, the world's largest producer, slumped and metal stockpiles dropped. Copper and zinc also rose.

Lead has advanced 19 percent this month, the best performer on the London Metal Exchange, as China shipped 31,456 metric tons of refined lead overseas in the first half, an 80 percent decline from a year earlier, according to customs data published today. Stockpiles tracked by the London Metal Exchange have fallen 10 percent in July to a five-week low.

``The lead market is quite tight in terms of inventories,'' Dan Smith, a metals analyst at Standard Chartered Plc in London, said today by phone. Demand for the metal has also held up well during the global economic slowdown, he said.

The contract for delivery in three months rose $87, or 4.2 percent, to $2,137 a ton as of 12:17 p.m. local time, paring this year's loss to 16 percent. That was also the highest intraday price since May 22.

Investors and traders are increasing bets on price gains as open interest, or the number of outstanding contracts, has soared 17 percent this month, touching a record of 87,890 contracts July 17. The metal was in an oversupply of 11,000 tons in the first five months of the year, according to the Ware, England-based World Bureau of Metal Statistics.

China's lead exports declined after the nation imposed an export tax in June 2007. Boliden AB said yesterday production of lead and zinc at its Tara mine in Ireland will extend decline in six to nine months.

Lead Retreats

The mine produced an equivalent of 104,019 tons of zinc metal during January to June, down 7 percent from a year ago, the Stockholm-based company said today in an earnings statement. Lead output fell 11 percent to 13,765 tons.

Zinc increased $49.75, or 2.7 percent, to $1,910.25 a ton, trimming this year's loss to 19 percent. OZ Minerals Ltd., the world's second-largest zinc mining company, said the price of the metal may start to rebound as mine closures cut the global surplus faster than expected.

``As the market sees the stocks get eroded, you will get a significant improvement in the price,'' Andrew Michelmore, chief executive officer of Melbourne-based OZ Minerals, said today on a conference call. ``It is not going to be anything like the doom and gloom in the zinc market that had been projected.''

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