One Copper Smelter in Shandong Shuts down on Cash Crunch

SHANGHAI, Dec. 24 (SMM) – One copper smelter in China’s Shandong shut down recently as it ran out of cash.

Major shareholders have stopped injecting capital into the smelter and banks also refused to issue loans to it, SMM learns. These, combined with tightening money supply at year’s end, exacerbated cash issue at the smelter.

Production at the smelter is at a standstill, and the smelter may face restructuring.

Climbing bad debts have left banks cautious towards lending, particularly to nonferrous metals industry which suffers from excess capacity. The situation was aggravated after Qingdao’s probe into the loan irregularities related to metal financing. In this context, copper industry will still face great financial pressure.
 
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