SMM Ranking by Metal Price Increase (Weekly)2017.3.3

This week, against the backdrop of fluctuating upward copper prices, the secondary copper industry chain showed a complex situation in which extremely tight upstream raw material supply coexisted with persistent negative margins for downstream finished products. In the secondary copper rod market, SMM data showed that the operating rate fell further to 5.45% this week, down 0.38 percentage points MoM and 25.43 percentage points YoY

Chile’s most pressing crisis at present is the issue of water resources. The Atacama Desert in Chile is one of the driest regions in the world and also the core area for copper and lithium ore extraction. The local area has experienced a drought for as long as 14 years, and reservoir storage has fallen to only about 30%. For miners, water resources are not a secondary issue, but an indispensable key production factor in such processes as ore processing, dust suppression, and equipment cooling. The decline in ore grade has further exacerbated the predicament

US President Trump adjusted the national security tariffs on imports of steel, aluminum, and copper, lowering the tariff rates on derivative products made from these metals, streamlining compliance procedures, and preventing the declared value of imports from being understated.A senior Trump administration official said that, under a proclamation signed by Trump, the US would continue to maintain a 50% import tariff on imports of metal commodities such as steel, aluminum, and copper pursuant to Section 232 of the Trade Act of 1974, but would apply this rate to the price paid by US consumers. It is currently unclear how the selling price—and the resulting tariffs—would be determined.