SHFE nonferrous metals rose across the board on Friday, as market sentiment was rallied after China’s Ministry of Finance pledged to make an early allocation of the special-purpose bond quotas for transportation infrastructure construction. 

Crude oil prices jumped on Thursday, following their biggest-ever quarterly losses, as US President Donald Trump said he expected Saudi Arabia and Russia to reach a deal soon to end their oil price war.

The impact from the coronavirus pandemic on China’s aluminium exports is mounting as greater part of the world comes under lockdown to stop the spread of the virus. On Wednesday, Vietnam, a major buyer of Chinese aluminium, entered into a 15-day period of nationwide isolation. Residents are required to stay at home and can only go outside for “essential needs,” such as food, medicines, urgent medical services or to go to work at companies permitted by the government to remain open.

Shanghai base metals opened mostly higher on Wednesday morning, as Beijing said that it will roll out a set of fiscal and financial policies to expand domestic demand, assist businesses reopening, sustain employment, and help all types of businesses to weather this difficult time.

SMM data showed that stocks across eight consumption areas in China, including SHFE warrants, decreased 3,000 mt from last Thursday March 26 to 1.664 million mt as of Monday March 30.

China’s crude steel production increased 5% year on year to 74.8 million mt in February, according to calculations by the World Steel Association (Worldsteel) based on a China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) production estimate.

China’s production of primary aluminium in the January-to-February period rose 2.4% year on year to 5.85 million mt, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on Monday. NBS data also showed that China's production of 10 nonferrous metals, including copper, aluminium, lead, zinc and nickel, totaled 9.35 million mt in the first two months of 2020, up 2.2% from the same period last year.

SMM data showed that China produced 683,100 mt of copper cathode last month, down 5.9% from January and 5.07% from February 2019.

Zinc rose 0.8%, tin climbed 0.7%, nickel advanced 0.6%, aluminium gained 0.2% and copper inched up 0.1%, while lead fell 0.6%.

Last year, Baowu generated 556.6 billion yuan in revenue and saw profits grow 690,000 million yuan from 2018 to 34.52 billion yuan, according to the company’s report.