[SMM News] supported by good news, the price of Shanghai Copper's main contract rose 1.4 per cent.

In terms of SHFE zinc prices, the market should be concerned about zinc concentrate, which is still short of supply.

The SHFE nickel continued to rise strongly last week, as the LME and SHFE inventories both dropped to extremely low levels and are expected to keep falling.

The most active SHFE 2203 copper contract prices are expected to move between 69,900-72,000/mt this week, and LME copper will trade between $9,750-10,050/mt.

The upstream supply of rare earths continued to be tight. In terms of ore imports, the enterprises in south China are more dependent on ores imported from Myanmar. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic situation in Myanmar has been worrying, the ore traders were pessimistic about the re-opening of the China-Myanmar boarder port in the first quarter of 2022, and they were less interest in selling rare earth ores from Myanmar.

The European energy issues did not worsen last week, but the overall market bullishness remained.

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

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.

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

Shanghai base metals all cruised higher on Friday morning after the head of the Federal Reserve told Congress he saw no need to rush the shift towards tighter post-pandemic monetary policy. Meanwhile, their counterparts on the LME mostly cruised lower.