Operating rates of brass billet producers edged down to 46.4% this week and are expected to fall below 41% next week [SMM Brass Billet Market Weekly Review]

This week (January 30-February 5), the operating rate of the brass billet industry was 46.4%, down 0.8 percentage points WoW. According to SMM, enterprise orders performed generally average during the week. Although copper prices hit a limit down, downstream clients generally adopted a wait-and-see attitude, with cautious purchasing behavior and reluctance to place orders hastily. On the production side, large enterprises continued active production to ensure order fulfillment, while small enterprises successively entered the Chinese New Year break. On the inventory side, industry raw material inventories remained at 3.73 days, and finished product inventory days stood at 5.49 days. Enterprises still primarily adopted an active destocking strategy, with overall raw material purchase willingness remaining weak.

Looking ahead to next week (February 6-12), affected by both the wild swings in copper prices and the approaching Chinese New Year holiday, most medium-sized enterprises will successively suspend operations starting February 7, and some large enterprises plan to begin their holiday on February 12. Against this backdrop, SMM expects the industry operating rate to drop approximately 5.67 percentage points WoW to around 40.73% next week.