Zinc Price Forecast: Top Trends for Zinc in 2025

“It’s very difficult to build new smelters. So China normally produces a lot of metal, but also manufactured goods. The typical route is manufactured goods end up in the US, so there’s been some attempts to build out new capacity in the US, but it's really very slow,” Smith commented to INN.

Tom Rutland, senior analyst at CRU Group, also spoke about potential Trump tariffs.

“By far, the biggest implications of the tariffs will be on US premia and the potential knock-on impact they will have on US zinc demand. For now, we do not expect it to impact zinc supply in any way,” Rutland told INN via email.

Zinc supply and demand in 2025

Overall, experts see zinc supply and demand remaining relatively similar from 2024 to 2025.

CRU expects mine supply to grow moderately, rising by 1.9 percent year-on-year, with a slight increase in refined output of 0.3 percent. Meanwhile, the firm expects demand to grow by 0.3 percent.

Some of this increase may come from Russia as the Overnoye mine in Eastern Siberia is expected to start production in 2025. The mine was originally slated to begin ramping up output in late 2023, but stalled after a fire destroyed critical equipment. Production was reported to have started in November 2024, but Rutland is skeptical.

“Replacing the damaged equipment was complicated by the sanctions imposed on Russia, meaning the mine had to replace the equipment with domestic technology, which we believe is unlikely to have been possible to have achieved to a high standard over such a short time frame,” he commented to INN.

Rutland doesn’t see Overnoye making a substantial contribution to zinc supply in 2025 either.

However, once the Russian mine is fully operational, it will add an additional 600,000 metric tons of zinc concentrate per year, accounting for 4.5 percent of total zinc production.

Another mine that may begin to ramp up in 2025, is the Xinjiang Huoshaoyun lead-zinc mine in China. The operation has also faced significant delays due to terrain and weather.

“It’s a very large mine in Xinjiang province, which is an extremely difficult place to do mining. It’s very high and subject to extreme weather conditions like sand storms, so it’s been quite a challenge to ramp that mine up as well,” said Smith.

With reserves of over 21 million metric tons, it will be the world's sixth largest lead-zinc mine once operating.

Investor takeaway

Even though zinc performed well in 2024, both supply and demand were weak. Barring any rebound in the Chinese or European construction and manufacturing sectors, these conditions are expected to continue in 2025.

Looking forward, Rutland sees the price of zinc remaining flat in the new year, and expects the base metal to average US$2,850 per metric ton, with the concentrate and refined markets in balance.

Smith shared a similar sentiment on supply and demand in 2025, but was more optimistic, suggesting that the price of zinc could push up to the US$3,300 range this coming year.