1、 Trend analysis

Copper prices rose slightly this week. As of the end of the week, the spot copper price was 51653.33 yuan / ton, up 1.09% compared with the beginning of the week, 9.12% year-on-year and 5.34% higher than the beginning of the year. Recently, copper price fluctuated mainly.

Copper strike: a union at Canada’s Candelaria copper mine in Chile said late Tuesday that it had once again rejected another contract from the company and would continue with a nearly month long strike. Lundin said earlier this week that the company had submitted a new contract to try to end the strike that began on October 8. Later in the month, a second Union joined the strike, forcing the mine to close. Candelaria produces 111400 tons of copper in 2019.

Reduced copper production: global diversified natural resources company Glencore reported on October 30 that copper production in the third quarter was 346600 tons, down 2% year-on-year. The Swiss based company said copper production from January to September was 934700 tons, down 81100 tons or 8 percentage points from a year earlier.

The coming of the off-season: the domestic copper consumption performance in October is fair, but the traditional consumption peak season is about to pass, and it is doubtful that the consumption will continue to recover. Since the end of September, the refined copper output in some regions of China has increased, with an average weekly output of about 20000 tons, much higher than the annual average of 17000 tons. The refrigeration industry and cable orders have improved since the National Day mid autumn holiday. The operating rate of copper pipe processing enterprises is basically maintained at about 75%, and that of wire and cable enterprises is about 90%. However, the industrial differentiation is still serious Factory operating rate remained high, while orders from small and medium-sized processing plants performed poorly. With the advent of consumption off-season, if there is no substantial domestic terminal stimulus policy, it is expected that domestic downstream consumption will not improve significantly in November.

In view of the above situation, the copper strike continued this week, and Chile’s copper production decreased in the third quarter, which supported copper prices. However, the traditional consumption off-season came in November, and the demand was expected to be poor, and the copper price was expected to maintain a weak volatility pattern.