Shanghai-bonded copper stocks fall over fortnight

Social inventories of lead ingots across Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Tianjin expanded 13,600 mt from last Friday July 23 to 172,600 mt as of July 30. This was up 6,500 mt from Monday July 26 and registered a new high since October 2014.

Inventories of rebar across Chinese steelmakers and social warehouses stood at 11.35 million mt as of July 29, down 22,700 mt or 0.20% from a week ago. Stocks are up 1.82% from a year earlier.

Social inventories of lead ingots across Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Tianjin expanded 7,100 mt from last Friday July 23 to 166,100 mt as of July 26. This was up 7,000 mt from Monday July 19 and registered a new high since October 2014.

This is a roundup of China's metals weekly inventory as of July 23.

Shanghai base metals mostly cruised higher on Friday morning amid dovish comments from European Central Bank. Meanwhile, their counterparts on the LME traded mixed.

SMM data showed that aluminium billet stocks across the five major consumption areas — Foshan, Wuxi, Huzhou, Changzhou and Nanchang — in China decreased 0.9% or 1,200 mt from a week ago to 119,600 mt as of Thursday July 22.

SHFE nonferrous metals closed mixed on Monday July 19 as markets digested the latest OPEC + announcement regarding oil production, and continued to brood on inflation and rising Covid-19 cases.

NDRC will continue to follow the deployment of the executive meeting of the State Council, work with relevant departments to strengthen the monitoring and forecast of commodity prices, organise subsequent release of copper, aluminium, zinc and other national reserves, and pay close attention to abnormal market price fluctuations.

SHFE nonferrous metals all went up today as China’s power curtailment expanded to many regions, and US expectation of interest rate hikes intensified.

SMM data showed that the stocks fell 4,300 mt from the prior week to 435,500 mt as of Friday July 16.