MIIT: 84.1% of car production bases in China have resumed work

The "2020 (10th) Tin Industry Chain Summit”—held by SMM and exclusively named by Gejiu Qiandao Metal—took place during October 20-30. During the summit, SMM interviewed Zhang huanqun, general manager of Gejiu Qiandao Metal, to discuss topics about upstream sectors of tin.

China’s sales of new energy passenger cars increased 25% month on month to 83,000 units in June, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) released on Thursday. 

The global widespread of COVID-19 has forced many countries to enforce stringent containment measures which result in a heavy impact on global economic activity. Over the past few months, we saw serious disruption of manpower, transportation and production in China. We are now seeing these scenarios happening around the world.

Prices of Chinese cobalt products may slow their downside trend in the short term as uncertainties around raw materials imports remain even as top supplier South Africa has eased coronavirus lockdown measures to level 4 which allowed freight transport to resume. 

SMM surveyed 41 major aluminium processors in 12 provinces and found that their average operating rate dipped 0.6 percentage point on a weekly basis to 74.4% last week.

The global widespread of COVID-19 has forced many countries to enforce stringent containment measures which result in a heavy impact on global economic activity. Over the past few months, we saw serious disruption of manpower, transportation and production in China. We are now seeing these scenarios happening around the world.

China's ternary precursor market will likely face continued headwinds of falling export orders for digital batteries and delays in recovery of new energy vehicle demand, as the global spread of the coronavirus has yet to show signs of slowing. This is expected to expand the downside room in ternary precursor prices this week. 

The widespread coronavirus has deterred production of NEVs in the European countries, and this may impact the global prospects for NEV production and take a toll on the consumption of raw materials. Last week, bearish sentiment continued to prevail in the cobalt market, which depressed downstream purchases and added to upstream inventory pressure. Sluggish demand reduced prices of battery-grade lithium carbonate, which were underpinned by costs, while fundamentals supported prices of industrial-grade lithium carbonate. 

Hubei previously said March 11 was the earliest businesses in the province could resume work. Authorities Wednesday issued a notice that laid out industry categories that could or could not resume operations based on the level of health risk in the region.

According to the SMM survey that covers 102 blast furnace steel mills, 42.2% of them are undertaking maintenance or have trimmed output (excluding mills that reduced output by adjusting rates of equipment utilisation and raw material ratios), down from a ratio of 50% last week, as some long steel mills have recovered production from maintenance.