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Copper Factories in North China Suspended Production Extensively, Consumption Release May Appear in Late September

Recently, it was discovered that many copper factories in North China market one after another entered production suspension status. According to manufacturers in Tianjin area, in order to guarantee successful proceeding of China’s Military Parade in early September, high pollution and high energy consuming smelting & processing enterprises in North China received notice of production suspension since August 15. At present, excluding one or two large processing enterprises which are still in active operation, trading at Tianjin copper scrap market almost came to a complete stop. Since the production suspension will continue till after the Parade, for most time of the next month, the North China market is expected to remain in inactive status.

Despite the production suspension of copper factories, we do not consider it will trigger market surplus. In August warehouses in Tianjin Binhai New Area were involved in an explosion. Binhai New Area is Tianjin’s bonded zone, import merchandises are shipped to destinations nationwide or transited to other countries via this zone. Tianjin is a key copper scrap distribution place in North China, within the short period ahead import warehousing in the bonded zone will receive heightened security check, customs clearance of copper scrap import will slow down in speed. In addition, the continual RMB depreciation may quickly bring down copper scrap import volume in North China. Consequently, the market’s dependence on domestically produced copper will increase, in the near future we can closely monitor the supply of domestically produced copper.

Another issue deserving our attention is that after the Parade in September, consumption in the copper market may be released collectively. Traditionally, the two months of September and October, which are commonly called Golden September and Silver October by the Chinese, are China’s peak season of consumption, although in the previous two years the peak season failed to pan out, consumption rebound realistically existed, even if it was unable to reach our desired condition. Currently copper price is in rally, within a short period of time RMB depreciation will continue to bolster up firm prices, technically speaking, copper price is facing the pressure of 40000 mark, consumption kickoff speed may slow down, copper price very likely will hover around 40000 yuan mark, and wait for more consumption support. In actual operation, merchants in South China are recommended to consider starting up partial capacity in advance, so as to win advantage in time, while intermediate traders only need to move merchandise in an orderly manner.