Flash: Copper spot premiums in Shanghai

Today, the spot prices of all series of stainless steel products in Foshan stood flat today. The average price of the 300 series product was around 18,000 yuan/mt. The market received a large number of goods last week, while the demand failed to keep up. The downstream users continued to purchase on rigid demand after the prices rebounded slightly yesterday.

The most-traded SHFE aluminum contract opened at 21,190 yuan/mt, with the highest and lowest prices at 21,505 yuan/mt and 21,115 yuan/mt respectively, and closed at 21,450 yuan/mt in the overnight trading, up 350 yuan/mt or 1.51%.

SMM understood that Codelco plans to set the benchmark premium for long-term contracts of copper cathode to China in 2022 at $105/mt, much higher than the $88/mt in 2021. Many domestic traders have received offers, but none have accepted them.

The falling prices of coal and other energy sources have dragged down the metals prices across the board. The SS 2112 contract fell to 18,375 yuan/mt this morning and stabilised to stand at 19,005 yuan/mt at noon.

Copper prices will continue to fluctuate rangebound in the short term. SHFE copper prices are expected to move between 68,500-71,000/mt this week, and LME copper will trade between $9,250-9,650/mt.

This is a roundup of China's metals weekly inventory as of September 10.

Shanghai base metals all cruised higher on Friday morning as European Central Bank kept interest rate unchanged and US dollar weakened. Meanwhile, their counterparts on LME traded mixed.

China's import volume of unwrought copper and copper semis in August were 393,900 mt, a year-on-year decrease of 41.07%, and a month-on-month decrease of 7.2%. The imports from January to August were 3.61 million mt, a year-on-year decrease of 15.4%.

As of Monday August 23, copper inventory across major Chinese markets fell 7,800 mt from last Friday to 143,000 mt.

Shanghai base metals all went down on Friday night following the record low of the US weekly initial jobless claims. Meanwhile, their counterparts on LME basically went up.