Operating Rates of Brass Billet Producers Continued to Rebound, While Pulling-Back Copper Prices Disrupted New Orders [SMM Brass Billet Market Weekly Review]

This week (3.13-3.19), the operating rate of the brass billet industry reached 54.13%, up 2.18 percentage points MoM, with industry conditions continuing to recover.From enterprise operations, orders were generally favorable, with large enterprises seeing a notable increase in orders, ample orders on hand, and some enterprises facing tighter delivery schedules. By the end of the week, copper prices fell below 95,000 yuan/mt, lifting downstream wait-and-see sentiment and causing some disruption to new orders. By segment, orders in traditional sectors such as hardware accessories and plumbing and sanitary ware remained stable, while the refrigeration sector performed relatively well, supporting demand. Inventory side, raw material inventory was about 4.4 days. Affected by tight copper scrap supply, enterprises maintained a moderate level of stockpiling; finished product inventories edged up to 5.25 days due to slower cargo pick-up. Looking ahead to next week (3.2-3.26), given sufficient orders on hand at large and medium-sized enterprises and continued production-side efforts to rush to meet deadlines, SMM expects the operating rate to rise another 0.38 percentage points to 54.52%.