Copper Supply Constraints Improved

As of June 17, stocks of copper in the previous period rose by 4,000 tons week on week to 55,000 tons, rising for three consecutive weeks. Compared with the same period last year, the difference narrowed to 117,000 tonnes. LME copper inventories ended a four-week decline and held steady at 118,000 tonnes, about 51,000 tonnes lower than a year ago. Comex copper inventories held steady at 73,000 tonnes, about 25,000 tonnes higher than a year ago.

According to separate statistics, stocks in the Shanghai free trade Zone rose 12,500 tons to 270,300 tons last week. Recently, due to the LME Asian warehouses cancelled warehouse receipts (mainly domestic brands) concentrated in the first ten days of June arrived in China, warehousing increased significantly. And it is expected that there are still some goods waiting for warehousing, and the inventory of Shanghai free Trade Zone is expected to rise further. Since June, two smelters in Shandong province have returned to the market with refined copper, and increased imports have led to a gradual improvement in domestic copper supply. As In August daye Yangxin Hongsheng 400,000 tons of electrolytic copper new project, the second half of the domestic copper output is expected to pick up further.

Demand has not picked up as much as expected

From January to May, China's investment in fixed assets (excluding rural households) reached 20.5964 trillion yuan, up 6.2% year on year. In the tertiary sector, infrastructure investment (excluding electricity, heat, gas and water production and supply) rose 6.7 per cent year on year. Investment in road transport fell by 0.3% and in railway transport by 3.0%. Traditional infrastructure may already account for less than 40 per cent of the infrastructure projects being actively pursued. From January to May, China's investment in real estate development reached 5,213.4 billion yuan, down 4.0 percent year-on-year. From January to May, completed investment in power grid projects reached 126.3 billion yuan, up 3.1 percent year on year. The pace of power grid investment continued to slow down, increasing 4.7 percent year on year from January to April. Despite continued policy efforts since the second quarter, copper's traditional consumption sectors have seen limited demand growth.

In the field of home appliances, the air conditioning industry, which consumes the most copper, saw a sharp drop in demand. According to relevant data,? 6? In June, China's air conditioning industry production was 13.39 million units, down 19% compared with the actual performance of the previous year. 4? The monthly growth peak slowed for two consecutive months. Among them, 8.57 million units were sold domestically, down 17% year on year. Export production was 4.82 million units, down 22% year-on-year in real terms. Sales of refrigerators and washing machines are also facing a sharp drop in external demand.