This week (6.19-6.25), the operating rate of the brass billet industry was recorded at 50.73%, down 1.44 percentage points WoW, broadly in line with previous expectations. Overall end-use demand remained weak in the off-season this week, with the procurement pace in the home appliance, hardware, and sanitary ware sectors continuing to slow down. Most enterprises relied solely on existing orders in hand to maintain production, and overall market transactions were sluggish. Only after copper prices dropped rapidly towards the end of the week did some downstream wait-and-see sentiment ease slightly, leading to a concentrated release of a small amount of rigid-demand orders. However, the increment was limited and insufficient to reverse the overall weak order trend. Days of raw material inventories at sampled enterprises edged up to 3.84 days. The tight supply of recycled brass raw materials showed no significant easing, and there was no large-scale restocking on the raw material side. Amid weak demand, the pace of downstream cargo pick-up was slow, and days of finished product inventories at sampled enterprises remained at 5.32 days, with inventory pressure still present.
Looking ahead to next week (6.26-7.2), demand is expected to see little substantial recovery in the traditional off-season. End-users will likely remain cautious amid copper price fluctuations, making it difficult for orders to rebound significantly. SMM expects that the operating rate of brass billet will edge up by 0.29 percentage points WoW to 51.02% next week, with industry production remaining under pressure at low levels.
