Main sea freight index at Baltic Exchange rises further to 978 points

Doosan Group said on September 17 that it will invest approximately KRW 968.4 billion (about USD 701.5 million) to expand high-end copper-clad laminate (CCL) production in South Korea and China. Roughly KRW 421 billion will expand domestic CCL lines for optical modules, while about KRW 547.4 billion will build a new plant in Changshu, China, for AI accelerators and network switches via wholly-owned Doosan Electro-Materials Changshu, with an additional KRW 182.4 billion capital injection. The three-year investment runs through 2028, with new lines scheduled to begin operations in the second half of 2028. In H1 2026, utilization at Doosan's Jeungpyeong and Gimcheon plants reached 109.8% and 102.7%, respectively, while the China plant ran at 92.2%. Q2 2026 optical-module CCL sales jumped more than tenfold year-on-year to about KRW 50 billion, and network-board CCL sales reached KRW 369.2 billion, accounting for more than half of the Electronics Business Group's revenue.

[SMM Copper Cathode Rod Flash] New orders continued to expand, and with the holiday approaching, finished product inventories destocked at a faster pace. Production willingness at copper cathode rod enterprises strengthened, and the operating rate is expected to rise 2.31 percentage points WoW next week.

[SMM Copper Cathode Rod Flash] The decline in absolute prices prompted copper rod enterprises to restock intensively, with raw material inventories rising MoM. The pullback in copper prices, coupled with the approaching Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays, encouraged downstream users to stockpile in advance, driving finished product inventories down significantly MoM.