NEW YORK — Special-high-grade (SHG) zinc premiums for 2013 appear to have been settled mostly at between 7.5 and 8.5 cents per pound.

The majority of SHG contracts have been signed in this range, although there are some outliers.

"We did some SHG between 7 and 7.5 cents per pound," one alloy producer source said. "Everyone wants to push for higher prices, but if someone is a regular buyer and has good credit, there’s room for negotiation."

"I know some people have been talking about deals at 7 cents, but I haven’t seen it," one trader said.

The majority of contract business for 2013 has now been concluded, he said. "I’d say we’re close to 90 percent of (contracts) being done; it’s just a question of formalizing it."

One producer source told AMM that demand from consumers for next year appears to be better than it was for the first quarter of 2012. "We’ve had a number of years in the past where first-quarter demand was way down because people have been tied into contract tonnage and then come out of the year long," he said. "We’ve not seen any of that this year."

Meanwhile, AMM’s spot SHG zinc premium is unchanged at 7.5 to 8.5 cents per pound, with prompt orders trading a few cents higher.

"If somebody needs a truckload overnight, they’re paying a pretty penny—about 10 or 11 cents per pound—but they’re small orders, and not reflective of the market," the trader said.

Zinc alloy prices also are unchanged, with the benchmark No. 3 premium steady at 17 to 19 cents per pound.

"The recent spike in the LME hasn’t really affected what we’re doing," the alloy producer said.

The LME’s three-month zinc contract closed Tuesday’s official session at $1,993 per tonne (90.4 cents per pound), up 3.8 percent from $1,920 per tonne (87.1 cents per pound) on Nov. 13.