Last Trading Day Before Holiday, Market Transactions Sluggish [SMM Secondary Copper Daily Review]

Nord Holding's wholly-owned subsidiary Baijiada signed a 2026-2028 copper foil supply framework agreement with CALB, with a total supply of 373,000 mt over three years. Based on the current mainstream tax-inclusive average price, the total contract value is close to 40 billion yuan. By year, the volumes are 58,000 mt in 2026 (41% of the company's current annual capacity of 140,000 mt), 130,000 mt in 2027 (93%), and 185,000 mt in 2028 (132%), with order scale increasing year by year and significantly exceeding the company's existing capacity in the later period. Nord Holding has planned to expand its total global capacity to 300,000 mt/year by 2030, covering both lithium battery copper foil and high-end electronic circuit copper foil. This order reflects the rapid growth in demand for high-end copper foil in the aerospace sector, especially the incremental market for high-grade copper foil for AI servers and copper foil for new energy aircraft. The company needs to meet delivery through capacity expansion and technological transformation, otherwise it will face a significant performance gap.

[SMM Analysis: Stockpiling Nearly Halted, "Forced Holiday" Amid Bill and Capital Pressures] According to SMM data, the operating rate of secondary copper rod producers stood at 9.35% this week, down 2.64 percentage points WoW and down 9.21 percentage points YoY. Meanwhile, the average price difference between copper cathode rod and secondary copper rod was 1,933 yuan/mt, down 181 yuan/mt MoM. In addition, the average discount of secondary copper rod in Jiangxi against copper futures was 443 yuan/mt, down 157 yuan/mt MoM. Based on SMM's secondary copper rod sales gross profit model, the average gross profit for the week was 1,001 yuan/mt, up 90 yuan/mt MoM.