Lead Price History: Monthly Global Price Since 1992

Lead’s dominant use is lead-acid batteries, especially for vehicles, and it is one of the most recycled metals in the world: secondary (recycled) lead supplies a large share of demand. That recycling buffer eases supply shocks, yet the volatility of the monthly price since 1992 is close to that of copper and zinc. This dataset reproduces the “Lead” column of the World Bank Pink Sheet, in US dollars per metric ton, with continuous coverage since January 1992. The price is the monthly average of the London Metal Exchange (LME) settlement price. China is the largest producer.

Dataset: Lead Price (1992–2026) · Updated 2026-10-01

Data provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy or timeliness. Check any figure against the primary source cited on this page before using it. Terms: legal notice.

Source: World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet) · CC BY 4.0

Macro Takeaway

Dataset Overview

Dataset Variables

The CSV and Excel files contain the following columns. Each row represents one calendar month.

Column names match the CSV headers exactly.

Download the Complete Dataset

The full dataset is available in CSV and Excel formats: monthly observations covering more than three decades.

Data provided as is, with no warranty of accuracy or timeliness. Check any figure against the primary source cited on this page before using it. Terms: legal notice.

Source Data Access: World Bank Pink Sheet

The underlying series is the “Lead” column of the Monthly Prices sheet in the World Bank’s Commodity Price Data, known as the Pink Sheet. The World Bank publishes it as a monthly Excel workbook on its commodity markets page, under a CC BY 4.0 licence that requires attribution to the World Bank.

The Eco3min dataset reproduces that column unmodified from January 1992, in US dollars per metric ton, in a stable CSV with a fixed column name for direct use in Python, R or any data pipeline. The URL never changes, which makes it suitable for automated scripts.

Direct CSV Access: Eco3min Structured Dataset

https://eco3min.fr/dataset/lead-price.csv

This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool.

Using the Dataset in Python

import pandas as pd

url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/lead-price.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"])

print(df.head())
print(df["lead_price"].describe())

df.plot(x="date", y="lead_price", title="Lead Price", legend=False)

Using the Dataset in R

library(readr)

url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/lead-price.csv"
df <- read_csv(url)

head(df)
summary(df$lead_price)

Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL, no download or API key required.

Methodology

The World Bank reports the lead price in US dollars per metric ton as the London Metal Exchange (LME) settlement price for refined lead, 99.97% purity.

Values are monthly averages, which smooth the intra-month swings visible in daily futures and physical quotes. The Eco3min file starts in January 1992, while the Pink Sheet column goes back to 1960.

An Eco3min pipeline on GitHub Actions reads the Pink Sheet workbook after each monthly release, keeps the column unmodified and regenerates the CSV, Excel and JSON files and the page metadata. The World Bank updates the Pink Sheet on the second business day of each month.

Data Quality & Provider Notes

The Pink Sheet price is a widely cited reference for the physical market. A few provider-specific points matter when using this series.

• Release latency. The World Bank publishes the Pink Sheet on the second business day of each month, with the average of the month just ended. Eco3min refreshes the file after each release. The series is not a real-time price.
• Monthly average vs futures spot. This series is a monthly average. It will differ from any single exchange settlement, and a monthly average necessarily understates intra-month peaks.
• Revisions. Prices are market-derived and are not revised like survey-based macro series, but the World Bank can correct recent months or replace a series, and it lists those changes in the notes of the Pink Sheet workbook.
• Source change on 30 September 2026. Until that date this file reproduced another publisher’s series; the whole history was then rebuilt from the Pink Sheet column, so figures downloaded earlier can differ slightly.
• Alternative sources. The LME publishes daily prices, and the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) quotes its own contracts: both give higher-frequency or contract-specific quotes.

Common Pitfalls When Using This Series

1. Confusing nominal and real prices. This series is nominal. Comparing an early-1990s reading to a recent one without adjusting for cumulative inflation overstates the real change. Deflating by CPI gives the true purchasing-power move.
2. Reading the monthly average as a market price. Headlines quote exchange futures; this dataset reports the monthly benchmark average. The two diverge most during fast-moving rallies.
3. Unit confusion. This series is the monthly average of the LME settlement price in US dollars per metric ton; SHFE (Shanghai) lead quotes and regional premiums differ.

Historical Regimes

1992–2004: Low and stable. Lead, heavily recycled and tied to lead-acid batteries, traded in a low range, between about $380 per ton (September 1993) and $980 (December 2004).

2005–2007: China-driven peak. Battery demand and tight supply drove lead to a record monthly average of about $3,720 per ton in October 2007, still the high of the series.

2008–2020: Range. After falling to about $960 per ton in December 2008, lead traded in a cyclical band between about $1,100 and $2,700 per ton until 2020.

2021–2022: Energy and recovery. Post-Covid demand and the energy crisis lifted lead modestly, from about $1,630 per ton in May 2020 to a peak of about $2,410 in August 2021.

2023–2026: Subdued. Weak demand and ample recycling kept lead range-bound, between about $1,840 and $2,250 per ton. The July 2026 average was the lowest since October 2020.

Related Macroeconomic Datasets

Commodity Price Hub

This dataset is part of the Eco3min commodity price repository: energy, metals, agricultural softs and grains, most of them from the World Bank Pink Sheet.

Explore the Commodity Price Hub

Sources

• World Bank: Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), Monthly Prices, column “Lead” (CC BY 4.0)
• London Metal Exchange (LME) settlement price, the market basis of the Pink Sheet series

Dataset Reference

Eco3min Research. (2026). Lead Price: Global Monthly Price (1992-2026). Source: World Bank, Commodity Price Data (The Pink Sheet), CC BY 4.0.<br> https://eco3min.fr/en/lead-price-history-dataset/