Zinc Metal DNA™
· Atomic #30 · ₹319.63/kg today
The unglamorous metal standing between a steel beam and rust — one of the six original London Metal Exchange metals, and quietly one of India's own mining success stories.
Zinc DNA Profile
Each dimension below is either computed live from data this site already tracks, or a manually researched figure with its own source — see how these are calculated.
How is this calculated?
Computed from the 30-day price change already stored in this site's own price history: score = 50 + (30-day % change × 2), clamped to 0–100. A metal flat over 30 days scores 50; every 1% of 30-day move shifts the score 2 points either way.
How is this calculated?
The standard deviation of daily % price changes over the last 10 trading days, scaled ×20 and clamped to 0–100. A purely descriptive measure of recent swing size, not a positive or negative signal on its own.
How is this calculated?
The single largest producing country's share of reported global production (excluding the "Other countries" residual bucket), taken directly from the USGS-sourced figures already powering /metal-reserves. Higher = more concentrated in one country.
How is this calculated?
Summed reported reserves ÷ summed reported annual production, across only the countries USGS reports both figures for (same commodity, same units — never summed across commodities). Scaled: 40+ years of reserve life scores 100, scaled down linearly below that.
How is this calculated?
Manually researched from each metal's primary industry association (see each metal's Sources section) — not computed. Scored as 100 minus the largest single demand sector's share of total demand, so a metal with no single dominant buyer group scores higher than one dependent on one sector.
Source: ILZSG / IZA, World Zinc Factbook 2024 (Zinc Usage by End Use Sector) — view
Scientific Identity
- Symbol
- Zn
- Atomic Number
- 30
- Category
- Industrial Metals
Source: IUPAC Periodic Table of the Elements. Further physical/chemical properties (density, melting point, electron configuration) are planned for a future update — not shown until individually verified per metal.
Galvanizing Is the Story
Coating steel in zinc — galvanizing — is by far the largest use of the metal, protecting everything from construction rebar to car bodies and highway guardrails from rust; it's a slow, unglamorous demand driver that tracks construction and infrastructure spending far more than it tracks headlines.
India's Quiet Zinc Giant
Hindustan Zinc is one of the world's largest zinc-silver producers, giving India a genuine domestic production base for a metal it also consumes heavily for its own construction and infrastructure sector — a rarer case on this site of one tracked country being a serious producer and a serious consumer of the same metal at once.
A Demand Story With Nothing to Do With Steel
Beyond galvanizing, zinc has a demand story almost no other metal on this site shares: it's an essential human and crop micronutrient, and zinc-deficient soils across large parts of Asia and Africa measurably reduce cereal crop yields. Zinc-based fertilizer and food-fortification programs are a slow but genuine driver of demand rooted entirely in nutrition and agriculture, not construction or industry at all.
Supply Snapshot
Real, USGS-sourced production shares — the same data behind this metal's Geographic Concentration score above. Full breakdown: Metal Reserves →
Demand Mix
Sourced from ILZSG / IZA, World Zinc Factbook 2024 (Zinc Usage by End Use Sector) (2024 data) — view source.
Did You Know?
Zinc has been traded on the London Metal Exchange since its earliest days in the 1870s, one of the original six base metals the LME was built around.
Frequently Asked Questions
Zinc Metal DNA™ is MetalsCost's intelligence profile combining scientific identity with market, supply and demand indicators — each indicator is either computed from this site's own stored price and reserves data, or a manually researched, cited figure. See the methodology page for exactly how.
Zinc's overall score of 41/100 is a simple average of the individual dimensions currently scored for it below — click any dimension's "Why?" for its exact formula and source.
China accounts for 31.5% of global zinc production, per USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries — see the full production breakdown.
The Zinc price in India today is ₹319.63 per kilogram as of October 16, 2026. See the live price and chart.
MetalsCost Metal DNA™ is an informational and analytical indicator. It is not investment advice, a price target, or a recommendation to buy or sell any commodity or financial instrument. See the methodology page for data sources and calculation details.
