Lead
LME
The quietest LME metal: a closed battery loop where roughly four of every five tonnes are recycled.
Top Producers
share of 2024 mine production
Top Consumers
share of 2024 refined consumption
Main Uses
share of 2024 refined lead demand by end use (ILZSG)
Top Exporters
share of 2024 refined lead exports, UN Comtrade / ILZSG
Top Importers
share of 2024 refined lead imports (UN Comtrade / ILZSG); the US imports despite its huge recycling base because battery demand outruns secondary supply
World refined production
roughly 13 million tonnes
as of 2024
Recycled share of supply
roughly two-thirds globally; near 99 percent battery recycling in the US
as of 2025
Battery share of demand
roughly 85 percent
as of 2025
Record LME price
$3,989 per tonne
October 2007
Typical price range, 2023-2025
roughly $1,900 to $2,300 per tonne
as of 2025
Lead is the most circular major metal market on earth. Roughly 85 percent of demand is lead-acid batteries, and those batteries come back: globally roughly two-thirds of refined lead supply is secondary metal from recycling, and in the United States the figure for battery lead approaches 99 percent. The result is a market that behaves like a closed loop with a small mining top-up, geologically convenient since lead is mostly co-mined with zinc and silver rather than targeted on its own. Demand is overwhelmingly replacement-driven: car batteries die on a four-to-six year cycle, conveniently spiking in cold winters, which gives lead one of the most reliable demand floors in commodities and one of the dullest price charts, oscillating around roughly $2,000 a tonne for most of the 2020s.
The market's long-run question is substitution, and it is moving slower than forecast. Electric vehicles eliminated the starter motor but kept a 12-volt lead-acid auxiliary battery in almost every model, and the workhorse applications keep growing: e-bikes and e-rickshaws across Asia, telecom towers, and uninterruptible power supplies in data centers, where lead-acid remains the default backup chemistry on cost. Lithium iron phosphate is taking share at the margin in stationary storage and some auxiliary systems, but the installed recycling infrastructure gives lead a cost advantage that has outlived two decades of obituaries. Supply-side news is rare and usually environmental: smelters in the West have closed steadily under tightening lead-exposure rules, concentrating secondary smelting capacity, and the 2021 German floods that damaged the Stolberg smelter showed how little slack the system carries.
How It Trades
| Venue | LME (global benchmark), SHFE (China) |
| Benchmark contract | LME Lead 3-month forward |
| Contract size | 25 tonnes |
| Price terms | USD per tonne |
| Settlement | Physical delivery of LME warrants (99.97 percent minimum purity); scrap battery and secondary metal flows price off the LME OTC. |
| Typical curve | Mostly mild contango; occasional nearby squeezes when LME stocks concentrate, but the recycling loop dampens sustained tightness. |
| Liquidity | The least liquid of the core LME base metals; adequate for industrial hedging, thin for funds. |
Where It Trades
approximate share of global daily exchange volume, 2025
Supply and Demand
Top producers
- China: roughly 2 million tonnes mined and roughly 40 percent of world refined output
- Australia: roughly 0.4 million tonnes mined
- United States: roughly 0.3 million tonnes mined, plus the world's largest battery recycling base
- Peru, Mexico, Russia, India: roughly 0.2 to 0.3 million tonnes each
World refined supply is roughly 13 million tonnes, of which roughly two-thirds is recycled. Mine supply is mostly a by-product of zinc and silver mining, so lead mine output responds to zinc economics, not lead prices.
Top consumers
- China: roughly 40 percent of world consumption
- United States
- India, with the fastest-growing battery fleet
- European Union, Japan, South Korea
Major uses
- Lead-acid batteries (automotive SLI, e-bikes, UPS, telecom backup): roughly 85 percent
- Rolled and extruded products, radiation shielding
- Pigments, glass, and ammunition: small residual shares
What Moves the Price
- Replacement battery demand, with cold-winter spikes
- Scrap battery collection rates and secondary smelter margins
- Zinc mine economics, since most lead is co-mined with zinc
- Chinese environmental enforcement on smelters
- LFP substitution at the margin in stationary and auxiliary applications
- LME stock concentration and warrant squeezes
Moments That Made the Market
1920
Lead gains official LME quotation after decades of unofficial trading; the contract has changed remarkably little since.
1970s
The US Clean Air Act and catalytic converters begin the global phase-out of leaded gasoline, removing what was once a major demand source.
2007
Supply disruptions, including the loss of Ivernia's Magellan mine shipments, drive lead to a record $3,989 a tonne in October.
2021
UNEP declares the global elimination of leaded gasoline complete when Algeria sells its last litres in August; floods damage the Stolberg smelter in Germany.
2024
Lead trades its familiar roughly $2,000 range while e-bike and data center UPS demand quietly offsets early EV-related losses.
What Changed Since the 2010 Handbook Era
- The recycling loop tightened further: secondary metal rose to roughly two-thirds of world supply, making scrap collection the real supply side.
- EVs arrived and lead demand barely noticed, because nearly every EV still carries a 12-volt lead-acid auxiliary battery.
- Data center UPS systems and Asian e-mobility became meaningful new demand pillars.
- Western primary smelting continued to close under environmental rules, concentrating capacity in China and in secondary plants.
- Lead decoupled from the energy-transition narrative entirely: it is now valued as a stable cash-flow recycling business, not a growth story.