Copper fabricators in China and the wider Southeast Asian region continue to feel the pain of high copper prices on futures exchanges and a lack of new orderbooks. "I've begun to receive some requests from my clients for postponing their [copper cathodes] shipments from last week, because they don't have new orders at current copper prices," a copper trader in Singapore said.

A second Singapore-based trader stated, "Long-term shipments have been postponed or delayed [in the region] and [plants] will buy on the spot market if there is demand, which is now lower than 2024's long-term terms." Japanese copper producer Pan Pacific Copper (PPC) offered at a premium of $95 per tonne to its customers in Southeast Asian countries for the 2024 copper cathode supply, while spot premiums in the region have been falling due to higher copper futures prices deterring spot buying.

Copper fabricators in China have also been severely impacted by elevated copper futures prices and a lack of sufficient order volumes. "The whole industry [of copper fabricators] is crying, and crying louder now, [and] it's a gambling on futures prices, which has completely decoupled with real demand, and we now basically make spot purchases based on orders, and we haven't received new orders for a while, and we are not alone," said one copper plant in south China. Another copper plant in east China noted that while large fabricators can manage, "small and medium-size plants are running at lower operating rates due to low acceptance of higher copper prices among end-users, and I heard some copper rod producers are operating their lines on a 'rota' basis, because their orders are not sufficient enough for them to keep units on-stream.

"Copper traders are also grappling with subdued demand for imported copper units, with the premium sitting closer to its record low. "The market is desperate due to sustained, big arbitrage loss, [and] there is no buying, or [bids] came at sharply low numbers, with most of them going single or double negative numbers," a third copper trader in Shanghai said.

Fastmarkets assessed the daily copper grade A cathode premium, cif Shanghai at a discount of $10 to a premium of $5 per tonne on Tuesday, much closer to an all-time low since the price assessment began in 2015.