The operating rate of brass billet producers rose slightly this week, and is expected to decline next week due to multiple factors [SMM Weekly Review of Brass Billet Market]

According to SMM data, the operating rates of brass billet producers rose slightly this week, increasing by 0.83 percentage points MoM to 49.64%. The main reason is that, under the influence of tariffs, copper prices have remained at a relatively low level in the near term, significantly improving downstream market acceptance, thereby driving up the operating rates of enterprises. In terms of inventory, the days of raw material inventories in SMM's sample decreased by 0.12 days MoM to 4.04 days, while the days of finished product inventories decreased by 0.18 days MoM to 6.39 days.

Looking ahead to next week, SMM analysis suggests that the industry's operating rates will face downward pressure. From the perspective of order structure, the current order recovery is mainly concentrated among large enterprises, showing a differentiated characteristic of "strong extruded billets and weak continuous cast billets." Since small enterprises mostly produce continuous cast billets, their overall order performance is weak. More notably, the trend of "de-copperization" is continuing to intensify, with market acceptance of alternative materials such as stainless steel and aluminum semis constantly improving. This has led copper billet enterprises to have to boost shipments through price reductions, resulting in a phenomenon of "increased production, decreased inventory, but declining profits." Considering multiple factors, SMM expects that the weekly operating rates of brass billet producers will decrease by 0.45 percentage points next week to 49.19%.