SHANGHAI, Nov 16 (SMM) – Operating rates across China's copper rod producers stood at 76.42% in October, down 3.71 percentage points from September but up 3.99 percentage points from a year ago, an SMM survey found.
Most copper rod producers had breaks for up to three days during the week-long National Day holiday on October 1, and this lowered the overall operating rates from September. Weaker demand from downstream home appliances, real estate, automobiles, and electricity sectors also eroded production enthusiasm of those plants last month.
In the first half of October, rods producers using refined copper as feedstock lowered their operating rates, as falling prices of copper scrap narrowed the price spread between refined and scrap copper, SMM learned. However, operating rates across scrap-using producers grew last month.
In November, SMM expects that the cooling property market will continue to lower the operating rate by 0.27 percentage point from October to 76.15%.
