China copper production rose to record high of 868,000 mt in Oct, up 17.9% YoY

SHANGHAI, Nov 18 (SMM) – China’s production of copper cathode rose 17.9% from a year ago to a record high of 868,000 mt in October, showed the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Copper production in the first 10 months of 2019 amounted for 7.83 million mt, up 8.1% from the same period last year.

China’s zinc production came in at 548,000 mt, barely changed from a month ago and up 8.3% from a year ago. This was the highest level since January 2018, according to NBS data.

This brought zinc production in January-October to 5.12 million mt, with a year-over-year increase of 9.4%.

In October, China’s production of primary aluminium fell 1.8% year on year to 2.88 million mt, while production of alumina rose 3.6% to 5.97 million mt.

For the first 10 months of 2019, production of primary aluminium totalled 29.24 million mt, up 0.7% on a yearly basis, and that of alumina rose 4.4% during the same period to 60.77 million mt.

NBS data also showed that China’s lead production grew 16.5% year on year to 538,000 mt last month, bringing the tally for January-October to 4.62 million mt, up 17.4% from the same period last year.