BHP Copper Output Falls but Full-Year Guidance Maintained

Looking ahead to tomorrow, from the perspective of regional price spreads, the intraday Shanghai-Guangdong price spread widened further to around 250 yuan/mt, with the arbitrage window expanding further. The willingness to divert cargoes from east China to south China is expected to strengthen going forward, which is likely to redirect available cargoes from the Shanghai market and provide marginal support for local spot discounts. In addition, in the current Shanghai spot copper market, cargoes with invoices dated this month are relatively scarce on the trading side, with some suppliers opting to make shipments using cargoes with invoices dated next month. The price spread between cargoes with invoices dated this month and next month remained at 30-40 yuan/mt. Demand side, copper prices are currently moving sideways, and downstream enterprises' acceptance of current copper prices may improve somewhat, with ordering willingness rebounding slightly, though purchases still mainly center on just-in-time procurement. Overall, driven by the combined effects of mild demand improvement, cross-regional arbitrage, and divergence in invoice structures, Shanghai spot copper prices against the SHFE copper 2605 contract are expected to remain at a discount tomorrow.

[SMM Shanghai Spot Copper] Looking ahead to tomorrow, from the perspective of regional price spreads, the Shanghai-Guangdong price spread widened further to around 250 yuan/mt intraday, with the arbitrage window expanding further. The willingness to divert cargoes from east China to south China is expected to strengthen going forward, which is likely to redirect available cargoes from the Shanghai market and provide marginal support for local spot discounts. In addition, cargoes with invoices dated this month are relatively scarce on the trading side of the Shanghai spot copper market, with some suppliers opting to make shipments using cargoes with invoices dated next month. The price spread between cargoes with invoices dated this month and next month remained at 30-40 yuan/mt. Demand side, copper prices are currently moving sideways, and downstream enterprises' acceptance of current copper prices may improve somewhat, with ordering willingness rebounding slightly, though purchases remain primarily driven by just-in-time procurement. Overall, under the combined effects of mild demand improvement, cross-regional arbitrage incentives, and divergence in invoice structures, spot prices against the SHFE copper 2605 contract are expected to remain at a discount tomorrow.

Today, #1 copper cathode spot prices in North China against the front-month contract were reported at an average discount of 200 yuan/mt to a discount of 140 yuan/mt, with the average price down 10 yuan/mt from the previous trading day. The average transaction price was 102,015 yuan/mt, up 65 yuan/mt from the previous trading day.