Bullion, lead trade

These two stages may be within the one smelting site or may be two separate businesses, with crude lead bullion being the traded intermediary. Traded lead bullion is commonly derived from the treatment of primary concentrates, but can also be lead bulUon produced from secondary sources. Secondary bullion generally contains much fewer impurities. As an example, ISF smelters do not usually include lead refining operations and consequently sell their crude lead bullion to a refinery. The commercial terms for the sale of lead bullion are typically as follows ... 

Lead is commonly traded in the form of 25 kg ingots (pig lead), or as blocks of 500 kg, one tonne or two tonne weight. Typical dimensions are shown in Figure 14.1. Impure bullion as feed to an independent refinery is also commonly traded and is often cast and handled as four tonne blocks. 

Although this proportion is less than for other major non-ferrous metals (for zinc, the share would be well over 40 per cent, for instance) it has risen in recent years. It is also necessary to take account of the relatively high volume of trade in lead bullion, which displaces trade in concentrates taking both concentrate and bullion flows into account the share of production traded rises to over 40 per cent. 

Until recently, the broad structure of trade had remained largely unchanged since the 1920s, with some notable exceptions. From well before the Second World War, the European countries were the largest importers of refined lead (and bullion), despite being also major producers of metal. 

While concentrates and refined metal constitute the major material flows in lead, and are the ones for which regular statistics are most readily available, other industry raw and intermediate materials and products are also traded between East and West. Although accurate data is limited, China has been both a small importer and exporter of lead scrap in recent years, as have the Eastern European countries. In addition, there has been a small two-way trade in lead bullion in recent years. North Korea has regularly exported some 10-20000 tons of bullion annually, mainly to Japan, while the former USSR and Bulgaria have been minor, but sporadic, importers. The former USSR has also required the import of automotive lead-acid batteries, which it has satisfied with purchases from Italy and the former Yugoslavia, and from other Eastern Bloc countries. 

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