China copper production is declining, sales grow

The State Service of Statistics of China has provided data showing that the produced volume of refined copper fell 1.6% last month of 2014, amounting to 584,277 tons. Among the main reasons that influenced the decrease in production volumes — the lack of supply in the domestic scrap market. However, with respect to last year's data rate rose by 5.2%. Also declining production volumes affect systemic reorganization affecting China's copper industry, the majority of producers, not being able to find the desired number of consumers in the domestic market of the country, moving to the outside.

Lead production also shows a negative trend — companies in this area over the past month, a total of smelted 324.2 thousand tons, which is 14.6% lower than the results for March, 2014. This situation is associated with the closure of a number of businesses located in coastal areas — we are talking about the provinces of Fujian, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong. Indicators of zinc in April over the same period last year by 3.7%.

Copper prices are gradually recovering, against this background, copper manufacturers in China could increase sales volumes in the domestic market of the red metal, while reducing the amount of copper exported. According to the latest Chinese premium for copper range from 500 to 600 yuan per ton (from 80.28 to 96,34 USD), this figure is significantly lower than the April figures, representing more than 1,000 yuan per ton (160 USD).

Given the analytical predictions, according to which the global copper market expects a considerable surplus of proposals already lowered the cost of the metal on the London Stock Exchange in the amount of 8%, the decline in China's exports will have a positive impact. However, producers from the PRC were calculated in March 2014 to gradually increase the volume of exports, given the low price of copper on the domestic market, so that in April, the number of exported product increased to 100 thousand tons. These, however, were not reflected in the statistics, since the very impressive volumes of products were sold to traders and warehouses are located in China and in fact did not leave the country.

According to the forecasts in the May 2014 export promises to reduce up to 75 thousand tons, taking into account the active internal trading operations carried out at the expense of the external market. However, given the March and April deliveries, the annual volume of sales on the international market could reach 1 million. Ton.