SMM News on June 5:
As of Thursday, June 5, SMM copper inventories in major regions across China decreased by 4,200 mt from Monday to 148,800 mt, increased by 10,100 mt from last Thursday, rose by 28,700 mt from the recent low, and were 301,900 mt lower than the 450,700 mt recorded in the same period last year.
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Specifically, inventories in Shanghai decreased by 2,200 mt from Monday to 98,800 mt, while those in Jiangsu fell by 2,000 mt to 19,700 mt. In east China during the week, factors such as fewer arrivals of imported copper, a drop in spot premiums to a relatively low level, and increased downstream restocking led to a decline in inventories. In Guangdong, inventories increased by 0.09 to 23,600 mt. Although domestic copper arrivals surged during and after the Dragon Boat Festival, consumption also recovered due to the pullback in premiums, as reflected in the rebound of the daily average outflows from warehouses in Guangdong.
Looking ahead, we expect that the volume of imported copper arrivals will remain low next week, and domestic supply will also decrease compared to last week (the volume of shipments from smelters to warehouses increased during the Dragon Boat Festival but will decrease next week, as smelters have recently engaged in export activities), resulting in a lower total supply than last week. On the downstream consumption side, due to the significant narrowing of the price spread between futures contracts, downstream enterprises' procurement volume will increase. Therefore, we believe that next week will see a situation of reduced supply and increased demand, with weekly inventories potentially declining again.
