Furukawa Electric Co, the Japanese maker of wire, cable and copper semis announced on 15th April that it will consolidate its copper plate and strip business at its Nikko Offices. Company President Mitsuyoshi Shibata indicated that the company was taking contingencies for 10% drop in demand for copper sheets and strips, including consolidating finishing mills and casting lines. The company is in the midst of a large restructuring taking steps including closing its magnet wires business and off-shoring copper foil production to Taiwan.

Nisshin Steel Co, the Japanese manufacturer of steel flat-rolled products, announced on April 12th that it will establish a joint venture in China with another Japanese company to manufacture copper plated steel. According to the company, the joint venture will make copper plated steel for the automotive sector and will target Japanese automakers based in China.

In an interview during the annual CESCO week, Luvata's VP of metals sales Ian Scarlett said that the current warehousing activities are causing distortions to the LME's function as a market of last resort. The VP said he would like to see premiums reflect current market conditions and that some market players could distort the system, adding that the "copper value chain is broken." Mr Scarlett said that it is "not logical" for premiums to be rising during this current period of an increasing market surplus.

According to CRU's Copper Group Manager Vanessa Davidson, annual copper consumption growth will average 4.4% y-o-y during the period 2012-2017 driven by strong consumption in China and the rest of Asia. The Group Manager said she does not see the rising stocks on the LME as being as bearish as it seems, saying it is the result of stocks being transferred into visible locations. The speech was part of the annual CESCO/CRU World Copper Conference held in Santiago, Chile.

In an interview ahead of the CESCO/CRU world copper conference, Aurubis AG CEO Peter Willbrandt said that the company's US business is seeing the best flow of orders in 18 months and that the company's order book is full through May. The CEO said that the US has improved more than Europe and that Aurubis is still waiting for a stronger pickup in China, where he believed there had been a 50,000t destock of cathode in the past few weeks. Commenting on price expectations, he said that he expects copper to trade between US$7,500-8,000/t this year.

According to preliminary data from the Japan Copper and Brass Association, output of copper semis products from Japanese mills declined 4.8% y-o-y in February, to 60,949t. The output of alloy tubes and copper wires declined at the fastest rate in February, falling 38% y-o-y and 20% y-o-y respectively. However, the output of copper flat-rolled products bucked the trend with copper sheet output increasing by 23% y-o-y to 1,468t.

According to Mitsuyoshi Shibata, president of Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd, the company will increase its production and sales of copper and alloy plates and strips in China. The company aims to step up sales to meet the demand from auto makers who are moving operations to China. Furukawa Electric opened a subsidiary Furukawa Metal (Suzhou) Co in October 2012 and ramped and reached full production in early 2013.

Paranapanema, the Brazilian copper smelter and semis fabricator, has started test operations at its new 30,000t/y seamless commercial copper tube plant in Utinga. The plant, which cost BRL100M (US$50M) to build, will initially produce 400-600t/m of commercial tube before ramping up production to reach 2,500t/m within 12 months. The company plans to make copper commercial tube for use in the HVAC sector in Brazil. According to CEO Edson Monteiro, Brazil still imports around 40% of its copper tube from abroad.

Jiangxi Copper, the large vertically-integrated Chinese miner, smelter and semis manufacturer announced on 27th March that its output of semi-finished copper products was 582,100t in 2012, an 18.6% increase on 2011. The company said that it expects to expand production further in 2013, to 845,000t, which would be an annual increase of 45%. The company will do this by adding additional capacity, increasing available capacity to 920,000t in 2013, from 720,000t in 2012.

According to a statement from the Japanese Electric Wire and Cable Makers' Association, Japanese shipments of copper wire and cable could rise by as much as 2.2% in the fiscal year Q2 2013 to Q1 2014. This would see shipments rise to 701,000t from an estimated 685,700t in the fiscal year ending March 2013. Although Japanese wire and cable shipments have grown for four consecutive years, copper wire and cable shipments in 2012 were still around 20% lower than levels seen in 2007.

International Wire Group, the US-based fabricator of copper wire, announced on 22nd March that its full-year operating income for 2012 increased by the 6.9% y-o-y to US$57.5M, a record level. The company said that its total pound-for-pound of wires sold, which are primarily copper and copper alloy wires, increased by 5.3% y-o-y in 2012. The company said "our strong full year operating results were driven by increased customer demand in our bare wire business, primarily from the automotive/specialty vehicles market." International Wire Group also announced fourth quarter results, with operating income increasing by 9.6% y-o-y, whilst its pound-for-pound of wires sold decreased by 3.6% compared to the fourth quarter of 2011. This was because a higher proportion of the group's business came from tolling contracts in the fourth quarter - whereby end-users provide the refined copper to be converted into wire.

According to a statement from the Japanese Electric Wire & Cable Makers' Association, Japanese shipments of copper wire and cable fell by 6.2% y-o-y in February, to 55.700t, the third straight month of y-o-y production declines. Shipments from exporters were particularly weak in February with output declining 54.9% y-o-y. Weakness was also noted in the automotive and electrical machinery sectors with shipments falling 17.3% y-o-y and 7.8% y-o-y respectively.

A recent survey by the Shanghai Metals Market of 21 major Chinese copper plate, sheet, strip and foil producers, with a total capacity of 966,200t/y, showed that operating rates in February fell to 42%, as factories shut for the Chinese New Year holiday. Copper flat-rolled producers closed facilities as migrant workers returned to their homes and did not come back to work until after the lantern festival in late February. Survey participants were reporting better levels of demand post holiday as end-users such as the automotive industry and the lithium ion battery industry increased production. Survey participants expect utilisation to increase to around 60% in March.

According to data from the Chinese General Administration of Customs, China's February imports of unwrought copper fell by 38.5% y/y to 298,102t. Whilst partly due to the later-than-usual timing of the Chinese New Year holiday, the combined figure for January and February declined by 27.8% y/y. Imports have been trending downwards since the first quarter of 2012 and the February reading is the lowest since June 2011.

A recent survey by the Shanghai Metals Market of 21 major Chinese copper wirerod producers, with a total capacity of 3.4Mt/y, showed that operating rates in February fell to 57.8% as facilities slowed production during the Chinese New Year holiday. Wirerod producers reduced output as downstream demand from cable makers was weak in February, according to an SMM report with the survey. Many migrant workers return to their homes during the period, forcing factories to shut or reduce working hours. The SMM survey also revealed that producer's inventories of raw materials for the production of wirerod had increased to 22.6% of production in February, up 7.3 percentage points from January.

Chinese imports of unwrought copper and copper semi-manufactured products fell 38.5% y-o-y in February to 298,102t, although this was partially distorted by the timing of this year's Chinese New Year holiday. Year-to-date imports of unwrought copper, a measure less distorted by the timing of the Chinese New Year holiday, fell by 27.8% y-o-y from the same period a year earlier to 649,062t. According to a report from Reuters, Chinese importers have signed less annual contracted volumes in 2013 and imports of refined copper are expected to be at lower levels for the remainder of the year.

Riccardo Garre the Chief Executive officer of KME Group SpA, the Italy-based manufacturer of copper semi-fabricated products, said in an interview with Bloomberg that he expects the company's production of copper and alloy semis to be 435,000t in 2013, unchanged from 2012, and 10% lower than in 2011. The Chief Executive said "to assume that in 2013 the volume will be exactly the same as in 2012, it means it's really a negative vision," although he did note some strength in flat-rolled copper and alloys used in the automotive and electronics industries. In the interview, he also said he believed slowing economic growth had prompted manufacturers to look for cheaper alternatives to copper semis, such as aluminium and plastics.

Luvata, the UK-based manufacturer of copper semis, expects demand for its products in the US and China to expand by 5% in 2013, according to Chief Executive John Peter Leesi. In an interview with Bloomberg, the Chief Executive said that residential and commercial construction is very important to Luvata and that an improvement in these sectors in the US was boosting demand. Luvata also expects a pickup in demand for copper tube as the air conditioner sector in China expands in 2013, after a poor year in 2012. On Europe, Luvata expects "flat-to-small growth" in demand in 2013.

According to a February survey from the Shanghai Metals Market, the operating rate at 21 major Chinese electrical wire and cable makers fell to 48.5%, a 21 percentage point fall from January. The drop in utilisation rate was the result of the Chinese New Year celebrations which fell in February this year. Operating rates are expected to rebound in March as cable makers increase production to fill contracts from China's State Grid Corporation. The survey also revealed that raw materials stocks rose by 15.3 percentage points in February to 49.8% of production in February.

Prysmian, the Italy-based manufacturer of wire and cable announce on 26th February that it has secured a €350M (US$462M) contract from Alstom Grid to supply the DolWin3 project with power cables. The contract, which will involve supplying and installing 900MW submarine and land cables along a 78km sea route and an 83km land route, will connect off-shore wind farms in the North Sea to the German power grid. The work is scheduled to be completed by December 2016.