The operating rates of key copper rod producers using copper cathode averaged 70.25% this week (September 1-7), an increase of 1.28 percentage points from a week ago.
Orders increased but remained lacklustre as new orders were limited. The high copper prices, combined with the big price spread between the SHFE front-month and SHFE next-month copper contracts weakened downstream buying interest. Slow downstream delivery-taking resulted in greater pressure on enterprises’ finished product inventory. Copper rod companies said that there was no sign of a rebound in consumption.
The average price spread between copper rod produced with copper cathode and with copper scrap stood at 1,099 yuan/mt on Thursday. The price advantage of copper rod produced with copper scrap impacted consumption of copper rod produced with copper cathode.

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