WBMS: Global Copper Market Ended in Surplus

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): The copper market recorded marginal surplus during the initial two months of the current year. The copper market surplus totaled 51kt during this period. This is in accordance with the latest statistics published by the World Bureau of Metal Statistics (WBMS). It must be noted that the world copper market had recorded a deficit of 25 kt during the whole of 2018.

The world copper mine production totaled 3.30 million tonnes during Jan-Feb ’19. This was marginally lower by 0.6% when compared with the corresponding two-month period in 2018. The refined copper production too saw notable decline by 7% during January to February in 2019 to total 3.67 million tonnes. The production recorded significant decline in India and Chile. The Indian output declined significantly by 63 kt over the previous year, whereas the production by Chile too was down by 58 kt. Meantime, the EU-28 production dropped marginally by 0.9%, WBMS report said.

The global consumption dropped marginally by almost 6% from 3.84 million tonnes in Jan-Feb ’18 to 3.61 million tonnes during the similar two-month period this year. The Chinese apparent demand during this period recorded notable decline by 8.5% to total 1.739 million tonnes. The EU demand at 547 kt too was down modestly by 2.9% over the previous year.

The reported copper stocks increased in Feb ’19 to close at a level higher than end-2018 by 65kt. LME warehouses reported net deliveries of 6.1kt and nearly 100kt into Shanghai warehouses.

The monthly refined copper production totaled 1,797.0kt in Feb ‘19, whereas the consumption touched 1,684.4kt.