Copper prices decline, while price spread between futures contracts widens. Intraday premium remains flat, but price spread narrows. [SMM Shanghai spot copper]

Published: Jun 12, 2025 12:10

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[SMM Spot Copper] Looking ahead to tomorrow, copper prices are expected to decline, and downstream purchasing sentiment is improving. However, downstream players currently prefer to purchase after contract rollover under the backwardation structure. For suppliers, there is currently almost no willingness to sell at a discount, and it is expected that the market will continue to see small contango transactions tomorrow.

SMM News on June 12:

Today, spot #1 copper cathode against the SHFE copper 2506 contract was quoted at a premium of 40-150 yuan/mt, with an average quoted premium of 95 yuan/mt, unchanged from the previous trading day. The SMM #1 copper cathode price ranged from 78,990 to 79,160 yuan/mt. In the morning session, SHFE copper futures fluctuated rangebound, initially rising above 78,960 yuan/mt before oscillating between 78,960 and 79,030 yuan/mt. Copper prices fell during the day, with the price spread between futures contracts (BACK structure) widening to fluctuate between 170-180 yuan/mt. The import loss for SHFE copper in the current month also narrowed to within 1,000 yuan/mt.

During the day, the price spread of standard-quality copper narrowed, and the profit from the price spread between futures contracts encouraged suppliers to actively sell. In the morning session, Xiangguang and JCC were quoted at a premium of 60-80 yuan/mt, while Tiefeng, Jinguan, and Zijin were quickly traded at a premium of 10-20 yuan/mt. Entering the main trading session, Xiangguang's price quickly pulled back to a premium of 40-50 yuan/mt during the day, with even a small amount of cargo available at a low premium of 30 yuan/mt. At this time, other supplies became scarce, and Zijin, Tiefeng, and Honglu were all traded at a premium of 30-40 yuan/mt.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, the decline in copper prices is expected to improve downstream purchasing sentiment. However, downstream buyers currently prefer to purchase after contract rollover due to the BACK structure. For suppliers, there is almost no willingness to sell at a discount currently, and the market is expected to continue to see small premiums in transactions tomorrow.

Data Source Statement: Except for publicly available information, all other data are processed by SMM based on publicly available information, market communication, and relying on SMM‘s internal database model. They are for reference only and do not constitute decision-making recommendations.

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