SMM electric furnace operating rate: demand growth is short-lived, and operating rate was weak

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said it expected UK GDP growth to slow to 0.4% in 2023.

Last week, wire and cable factories had normal production schedules and orders were stable. From the research point of view, after copper prices fell recently, the willingness of downstream replenishment has increased. Large cable factories had sufficient orders in hand and production schedules were active.

#0 zinc spot was quoted with premiums of 300-340 yuan/mt over SHFE 2307 zinc contract, and discounts in Guangdong stood at 10 yuan/mt to premiums of 20 yuan/mt against Shanghai prices. In the first half of the week, the price spread between the SHFE front-month and SHFE next-month zinc contracts was narrow, and prices in Guangdong stood below Shanghai prices.

Last week, the average operating rate of galvanising enterprises rose 1.1 percentage points from the previous week to 62.44%. Downstream buyers bought at lows as needed, and the raw material inventory increased slightly. In terms of operating rate, ferrous metals prices stopped falling last week, and orders increased. Some downstream dealers replenished stocks after inventory dropped, which drove galvanised pipe companies to increase production slightly.

Only 3.8% of cars sold in Australia last year were electric, lagging far behind other developed economies such as the UK and Europe.

Recently, the construction of the Yujiang die-casting new energy auto parts project located in Longsheng New Town, Liangjiang New District, Chongqing is progressing in an orderly manner. The production equipment of the project will be installed and debugged by the end of this year, and will start production in April next year.

On April 28, IKD Co. issued an announcement that the company planned to establish a subsidiary in Mexico, IKD New Energy Technology SA de CV, as the main body of construction and implementation of a new energy vehicle structural parts and battery, motor, electric control system parts production base.

Affected by weakening terminal demand, module companies reported accumulating inventory.

SHANGHAI, May 23 (SMM) - The prices of lithium ore climbed further along with rising lithium carbonate prices last week.

SHANGHAI, May 23 (SMM) - Refined cobalt prices edged higher last week, driven by rising raw material prices.