SHANGHAI, Mar 18 (SMM) - As of Friday March 18, SMM copper inventory across major Chinese markets decreased 34,400 mt from Monday to 172,500 mt, up 73,800 mt from the pre-CNY holiday level of 98,700 mt and down 43,500 mt from last Friday March 11. Destocking this week was faster than that in last week, which showed that the turning point of domestic inventory has appeared. Compared with Monday's data, inventories across China decreased. In detail, the inventories in Shanghai decreased 26,500 mt to 106,100 mt, the inventories in Guangdong dropped 4,200 mt to 47,800 mt, the inventory in Jiangsu fell 3,000 mt to 10,100 mt, the inventory in Zhejiang dipped 200 mt to 1,900 mt, and the inventory in Tianjin dropped 500 mt to 1,000 mt. There were several reasons that led to the decrease of inventory this week: 1. Affected by the COVID-19, the delivery efficiency in some smelters was reduced; 2. There was not much imported copper; 3. The logistics cost was high, but the long-distance transportation freight would not increase, so the driver dawdled over work; 4. The factory could only pick up goods from the surrounding inventories because the long-distance transportation was reduced. What’s more, the downstream consumption was weakened by the COVID-19 to some extent. In general, the supply is weaker than the demand at present. Looking forward, SMM expects that the above situation will hardly improve significantly next week, and the inventory will continue to decline.
