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Many Japanese scrap dealers have reduced their shipments to copper alloy fabricators by more than 20% in October due to falling demand. Copper fabricators have decreased their scrap purchasing volumes because of weaker semis output. A number of brass bar makers decreased their buying volume of brass turning scrap by more than 30% in October. From the supply side, copper scrap generation has been tight. Scrap availability has been falling since July and that has triggered competition between scrap dealers to maintain adequate levels of inventory, which resulted in a spike in the market price in September.

The Nizhni Novgorod Copper Company will invest around RUB800M (US$32M) in a copper wirerod plant in Dzerzhinsk, in the Nizhni Novgorod region of Russia. The plant is expected to have an annual capacity of 25,000t/y, and will use 26,000t/y of copper scrap. Commissioning is expected in late 2010.

Major Japanese copper semis and wire and cable manufacturers were impacted by the devastating earthquake. It was reported that Hitachi Cable's establishments in Densen, Hidaka, Takasago and Toyoura were affected, while the Minato plant was flooded by a 1.5-metre tsunami. Fujikura's facilities in Sakura, Chiba, which engage in the production of optical materials, were also impacted. Furukawa Electric's Chiba offices, which are located at a landfill, were affected due to soil liquefaction. The company's production equipment at its telecom cable factory experienced damages. Mitsubishi Shindoh, a copper and alloy semis fabricator, saw its plumbing operations partially destroyed. San-Etsu, a brass bar specialist, is shutting down production at its Shin-Nitto plant in Ibaraki, without any significant damages reported whatsoever. Production will be transferred to two other factories.

The US Copper and Brass Fabricators Council has reported a 15.7% m-o-m increase in the US brass mill products trade deficit, taking net imports to 19.9Mlbs in March 2011. The principal suppliers to the US were Germany and South Korea, whereas most US shipments were to Canada, Mexico and China. The segment which saw the largest increase in trade deficit was flat rolled products which reached 6.5Mlbs in March, up from 3.8Mlbs in the previous month. In addition, the trade deficit of rods, bars and sections rose, whereas tube as well as alloy wire both experienced greater monthly gains in exports compared to imports.

The Japan Copper and Brass Association reported that copper semis production amounted to 73,170t in June, a fall of 4.2% y-o-y. This was principally attributed to reduced copper and copper alloy strip production due to weaker demand from the leadframe, automotive component and connector pin segments. In addition, exports of brass strip fell by 38% y-o-y in June. The report comes one month after record import levels of copper and copper alloy fabricated products which expanded by 54% y-o-y to reach 6,251t. This figure consisted of 2,203t brass bar and 1,800t copper tube with 49% of the products received from South Korea and 30% from China.

The Copper and Brass Servicenter Association reported that shipments of brass mill products amounted to 23.1Mlbs in June 2011, up slightly from 23.0Mlbs on the previous month and down by 6.5% y-o-y. The positive signs of growth that were registered earlier in this year, which peaked during March as shipments reached 25Mlbs, subsequently dropped and levelled off in Q2. Slower growth in June compared with the same month last year is attributed to shipments of brass products falling 12.8Mlbs, down by 12% y-o-y, with the largest drops in shipments occurring within the brass sheet, rod and bar product segments.

Hussey Copper Ltd, the Philadelphia-based copper semis fabricator, is rumoured to be up for sale and industry sources said that a deal is likely to be struck imminently. The company has recently been struggling to finance elevated input costs, attributed to high copper prices. In a bid to alleviate cash-flow issues stemming from the higher cost of financing, Hussey firstly reduced its payment terms in January from a 45-day to a 30-day basis. Two months later, the company asked customers to pay for freight charges on orders, which mills' traditionally absorbed into their own costs. Hussey manufactures copper and copper alloy rolled products, rods and electrical bar at two operations located in Leetsdale, PA and Eminence, KY.