China Metals Activity Tracker: China Copper destocking weak vs historical trends whilst Aluminium destocking pace remains strong

We present our high-frequency inventory trends for base metals and iron ore in China for the week ended 18 Sep'26. Our data plots China weekly metals inventory trends, a proxy for consumption. In the past week, China drawdown trends continued across industrial metals although strength in drawdown in Copper continues to be weaker vs seasonal norm. China copper saw a destocking of 3kt last week vs a 5-year seasonal average of ~17kt de-stocking. However, with LME Copper retreating closer to ~$14,000/t in the past week, China's onshore Copper buying activity picked up again, with purchase premium increasing significantly to back above $120/t. In contrast, Aluminium's strong, above trend destocking continued (-63kt last week), with total inventory now reduced back to historical normal levels (~800kt). What is of note in Aluminium this week is that monthly output figures from China NBS showed Aluminium production at 4MT for August and 31MT for first 8 months, with YTD figure annualised to ~4