Spot quotes continued to decline last week. At the beginning of the week, the continuous increase in inventory pushed down spot quotes. A large-scale seller sold aggressively with discounts to liquidate inventories, further lowering spot quotes at the end of the week.
As of last Friday, high-quality copper was quoted with discounts of 50 yuan/mt, down 40 yuan/mt from a week earlier, and standard-quality copper was quoted with discounts of 60 yuan/mt, down 20 yuan/mt from a week earlier. Hydro-copper was quoted with discounts of 140 yuan/mt, down 30 yuan/mt. The high-quality copper under warrants offered for sale last week significantly narrowed its price spread with standard-quality copper, which stood at only 10 yuan/mt last Friday.
Last Friday, the prices in Shanghai exceeded those in Guangdong by 60 yuan/mt. The price gap was so small that there was no opportunity for cargo transfer between the two regions. As of Friday, total inventories in Guangdong stood at 52,700 mt, a growth of 4,600 mt from a week earlier.
The arrivals in Guangdong added 5,500 mt to 19,300 mt, flat from the weekly average of 19,000 mt for 2022. The nearing delivery of the April contract and large spot discounts prompted smelters and traders to ship cargoes aggressively to warehouses for delivery.
Shipments of copper cathode leaving the warehouses in Guangdong fell 1,800 mt to 14,700 mt last week, well below the weekly average of 19,500 mt for 2022. This is because of poor downstream consumption. SMM understood that some large processing enterprises only kept one production line in production.
The shipment volume of smelters will decrease this week as the delivery of front-month contract has been completed, and the customs clearance volume of imported copper will not increase significantly. Hence the total supply will decrease. In terms of consumption, as copper prices continue to fall and processing companies have digested their finished product inventories, SMM expects that consumption this week will outperform last week notably, and inventories in Guangdong will decline with rallying spot quotes.
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