HK Stock Market Move | The collective rise of copper stocks, the resumption of production in Grasberg copper mine falls short of expectations, supply disruption supports the bottom of copper prices.

Copper stocks collectively rose, as of the time of writing, JIANGXI COPPER (00358) rose by 4.99%, to 38.3 Hong Kong dollars; CMOC Group Limited (03993) rose by 3.06%, to 18.2 Hong Kong dollars; CHINFMINING (01258) rose by 2.89%, to 13.55 Hong Kong dollars; Zijin Mining Group (02899) rose by 2.77%, to 36.34 Hong Kong dollars. On the news front, on April 23, the world's largest listed copper producer, Freeport-McMoRan, announced that the progress of the restart of its Grasberg copper mine in Indonesia was significantly slower than expected. The mine can only restore about 65% of its production capacity in the second half of the year, and the annual copper production guidance has been revised from 1.1 billion pounds to 800 million pounds, corresponding to a reduction of about 136,000 tons. BOC International analysis pointed out that this downward revision is not a short-term disturbance, but is due to the significant increase in the proportion of wet ore underground after months of shutdown, leading to the need for renovation of the transport system. The 2nd and 3rd production zones can only operate at around 60% of their capacity in the short term. This bottleneck is not expected to be resolved until around mid-2027, and the impact on supply is expected to be sustained. In the context of continued supply disruptions, there is limited room for a significant decline in copper prices, and it is expected to maintain a range-bound strong pattern.