Recently, according to a satellite monitoring index for copper plants, China's refined copper production hit its lowest level in 20 months in January this year, according to media reports.

However, data released on Tuesday showed that global smelting activity slightly increased driven by strong smelting activity in Europe.

Earth-i, which focuses on geospatial data, launched savant service at the end of last year to track the development of 100 smelters, which account for 80% - 90% of global production. It sells data to fund managers, traders and miners, and publishes monthly activity indexes of copper smelters free of charge.

The average level of global activity rose to 90.1 in January, 0.2 percentage points higher than last month. The index represents the percentage of active smelters worldwide.

The latest level is in the middle of the last 12 months, 85.2-93.8.

In January, China's activity index continued to fall to its lowest level since May 2018, according to a joint statement released by broker MarexSpectron. But by the end of January, the index had rebounded slightly.

‘While these data are weak, they don't show the extreme weakness that people are worried about,’ said Guy wolf, director of global analysis at MAREX ‘Despite the pneumonia epidemic, there is evidence that production has been shrinking rather than stopping, especially in larger areas.’ Industrial activity in China slowed down during the Spring Festival in January and was further affected by the outbreak.

Earlier this month, Guangxi Nanguo copper smelter announced that delivery of copper concentrate encountered force majeure.

Rio Tinto said last week that its shipments of copper concentrate to China had slowed.

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