Sluggish Trading Combined with Tight Raw Material Supply, Operating Rates of Brass Billet Producers Continued to Decline [SMM Brass Billet Market Weekly Review]

This week (4.10-4.16), the operating rate of the brass billet industry was recorded at 53.68%, down 1.03 percentage points WoW. Copper prices continued to fluctuate at highs, overall market trading was subdued, and new orders of enterprises weakened notably. Meanwhile, recycled brass raw materials supply remained tight, raw material prices stayed high, and raw material inventories of enterprises pulled back slightly to 4.31 days. Affected by the slowdown in downstream cargo pick-up pace, finished product inventories of sample enterprises edged up to 5.42 days. Looking ahead to next week (4.17-4.23), copper price fluctuations will continue to suppress the release of enterprise orders. Coupled with the difficulty in easing tight raw material supply of recycled brass, the industry operating rate is expected to continue to decline by 0.32 percentage points to 53.36%.