Half a year has passed, and finished goods inventories await consumption. The operating rate of copper cathode rod enterprises turned negative YoY. [SMM Weekly Review of Copper Cathode Rod Production]

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       Copper cathode rod: The weekly operating rate (June 27 - July 3) of major domestic copper cathode rod enterprises unexpectedly declined to 63.74%, down 10.27 percentage points MoM, 9.74 percentage points lower than the expected value, and turning negative YoY with a decline of 4.75 percentage points. This week, the off-season atmosphere intensified in the downstream market, leading to weak consumption. Meanwhile, copper prices surged past 80,000. Additionally, due to the continuous increase in finished product inventories of copper cathode rod enterprises before the semi-annual period, multiple copper cathode rod enterprises cut production and halted operations this week to actively reduce inventories, driving down the weekly operating rate of copper cathode rod, which turned negative YoY. From the perspective of specific inventories, with the active production cuts and inventory reductions by copper cathode rod enterprises, the raw material inventories of copper cathode rod enterprises continued to decrease this week, down 1.04% MoM, reaching 33,400 mt. The finished product inventories of copper cathode rod enterprises finally decreased by 9.77% MoM this week, reaching 65,100 mt. Looking ahead, although consumption has not shown signs of improvement, due to the low finished product inventories of some enterprises this week, it is expected that the operating rate will rise to 71.56% next week (July 4 - July 10), driven by production resumptions, up 7.81 percentage points MoM and 3.87 percentage points YoY.