Copper Prices Retreat, Triggering Restocking and Reducing Finished Product Inventories

[SMM Copper Cathode Rod Flash] On Thursday, as copper prices pulled back, downstream enterprises showed significantly stronger willingness to fix prices, and new orders saw growth, providing some support for high operating rates.

[SMM Copper Cathode Rod Flash] The operating rate of major copper cathode rod enterprises in China rebounded by 29.59 percentage points WoW this week. Production gradually returned to normal after the holiday, and with finished product inventories previously at low levels, enterprises restocked intensively, driving a rapid rebound in operating rates. Production pace in end-use industries such as wire & cable and enamelled wire also returned to normal simultaneously, with operating rates rebounding to varying degrees.

According to market sources, Shandong Xiangguang Group Qingdao Nonferrous Metals Co., Ltd. ("Xiangguang Nonferrous"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Yanggu Xiangguang Copper Co., Ltd. under C&D Inc.'s nonferrous metals group, has completed feedstock introduction for its copper concentrates blending project and officially entered the production and operation stage. Located at Qingdao Port, the project has an annual blending and processing capacity of 400,000 mt of copper concentrates. By blending copper concentrates from different sources and of different grades, it optimizes raw material grades and impurity indicators. Once operational, the project is expected to further enhance C&D's raw material allocation capability across the copper industry chain, increase flexibility in utilizing complex copper concentrate resources, and provide raw material support for smelting operations.