Hudbay Minerals held a formal groundbreaking ceremony on Tuesday for the New Ingerbelle expansion project at its Copper Mountain Mine in British Columbia, Canada.The New Ingerbelle expansion is expected to extend the Copper Mountain Mine’s life beyond 2040, improve operational efficiency, and support long-term copper production.The expansion is designed to mine a higher-grade mineralized zone with a stripping ratio approximately one-third that of the current mining area.Based on existing reserve estimates, the New Ingerbelle project is expected to produce approximately 750,000 mt of copper, 900,000 ounces of gold, and 5.5 million ounces of silver over the remaining mine life.

Fed Hawkish Signals Exceed Expectations; Precious Metals Under Short-Term Pressure but Downside Limited June 18 — At 2:00 AM Beijing Time on June 18, the Federal Reserve kept the federal funds rate unchanged at 3.50%-3.75%, marking the fourth consecutive hold. The statement was significantly shortened in length and removed language hinting at further rate cuts. The dot plot showed nine officials expect a rate hike this year, while newly appointed Chairman Warsh did not submit a dot plot and declined to provide forward guidance. Hawkish signals pushed market pricing for a year-end rate hike up to 38 basis points. From a policy perspective, this FOMC meeting delivered hawkish signals that exceeded market expectations. Combined with the return of rate-hike expectations in the dot plot, it signals that the Fed's communication tone has shifted from "pause and watch" to "potential hiking," putting near-term pressure on precious metals. However, the fourth consecutive hold itself was in line with market expectations, and any actual rate hike still requires more data for validation, so the marginal impact of the policy signal itself is relatively limited. More critically, earlier economic data — U.S. May nonfarm payrolls rose by 172,000, beating expectations, with a combined upward revision of 93,000 for March-April — underscores that labor market resilience remains the most significant headwind suppressing rate-cut expectations and is the core bearish factor for precious metals recently. By contrast, May headline CPI matched expectations while core CPI came in slightly below consensus, meaning inflation data did not reinforce the tightening narrative beyond expectations, and its bearish impact is comparatively moderate. On balance, precious metals face dual pressure from hawkish policy signals and labor market resilience, but the elevated rate-hike expectations are still in the pricing-in phase, and the market may not form a systemic downward resonance at current levels. The trading logic will continue to hinge on subsequent nonfarm payrolls, CPI data, and actual communication from Warsh. US-Iran Peace Talks Advance; Geopolitical Risk Premium Unwinds June 18 — The presidents of the United States and Iran have signed an electronic memorandum of understanding (MoU). The official 14-point text largely matches prior media disclosures, and both sides are set to formally sign the agreement in Switzerland on Friday. Trump stated that if follow-up implementation of the MoU falls short of satisfaction, bombing operations would resume, and also revealed discussions with Syrian leaders on striking Hezbollah. Meanwhile, southern Lebanon witnessed multiple Israeli attacks, and Israel's finance minister indicated no withdrawal on Friday or thereafter. The geopolitical situation remains in a complex tug-of-war characterized by "negotiations alongside conflict." In the near term, the signing of the MoU marks a substantive phase in ceasefire negotiations, with market expectations for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz strengthening, leading to further unwinding of the risk premium. Should the formal agreement be finalized on Friday, structural concerns over crude supply would materially ease, putting downward pressure on the oil price center, which in turn would cool global inflation expectations. From a medium-to-long-term perspective, if sustained oil weakness drives down energy costs, the Fed's monetary policy room would reopen, and market logic could gradually shift from "tightening expectations" toward a "rate-cut cycle," potentially offering new macro support for precious metals. Overall, US-Iran relations are currently in a phase of "peace talks advancing, conflicts unresolved," and market pricing will revolve around Friday's agreement implementation and subsequent execution risks in a repeated back-and-forth manner. Early Hiking Cycle Pressure Does Not Alter Long-Term Logic; Precious Metals' Allocation Value Remains Prominent Historical experience shows that in the early stages of every rate-hiking cycle, precious metals typically come under pressure from rising nominal rates and a stronger dollar, but the trend is not unidirectional downward. As the hiking cycle deepens, growing concerns over recession risks and liquidity stress increasingly highlight gold's role as an inflation hedge and safe-haven asset, with its price center tending to rise in the middle-to-late stages. Therefore, even if the Fed continues on a hawkish path, the pressure on precious metals may not be sustained; liquidity conditions and shifts in macro expectations also influence price dynamics. Of course, our overall bullish long-term logic for precious metals remains unchanged: First, global central banks continue to accumulate gold, with de-dollarization and reserve diversification strategies providing a solid floor for gold prices. Second, the U.S. dollar's credit system faces deep erosion — high interest rates on U.S. Treasuries imply high risk, and over the long run, U.S. debt rollover pressures and fiscal indiscipline are accelerating global de-dollarization. Third, the ever-expanding U.S. government debt stock and deteriorating fiscal sustainability raise the risk of future debt monetization and dollar depreciation. As a non-liability, supra-sovereign hard asset, gold's safe-haven and store-of-value functions hold irreplaceable appeal in the current macro environment. At the same time, geopolitical conflicts continue to simmer without truly subsiding, while global supply chains and energy markets remain volatile, with inflation persistence lingering. These uncertainties will collectively underpin the demand for gold and silver as safe-haven allocation assets, further boosting their strategic value over the medium-to-long term. From the Gold/Silver Ratio Perspective: Silver Under Pressure in the Short Term, but Outperforming Gold in the Medium-to-Long Term Remains Intact Historically, the gold/silver ratio exhibits significant mean-reverting behavior, with its long-term center roughly fluctuating between 60 and 70. However, under extreme macro environments, it can deviate markedly — for instance, the ratio widened sharply after the 2008 financial crisis and approached a historical extreme near 120 during the 2020 pandemic. The underlying dynamic is that during extreme risk-off episodes, the market prioritizes gold as a safe-haven asset, while silver, burdened by its industrial metal characteristics, tends to face systematic selling. Thus, the gold/silver ratio's cyclical movement can be summarized as: widening during crises (silver underperforms) and narrowing during recovery/inflation cycles (silver outperforms). Its essence is a cyclical indicator driven by the alternating dominance of safe-haven attributes versus industrial attributes. In the near term, the gold/silver ratio is more prone to stage-wise upward moves or range-bound drift with an upward bias. On one hand, silver has already posted notable gains, with crowded positioning making it more vulnerable to pullback pressure. On the other hand, the photovoltaic industry — a key pillar of silver industrial demand — is expected to see cell silver consumption decline by 9.51% year-over-year in 2026, and with ongoing silver-reduction progress and evolving cell product structures, annual silver consumption is projected to maintain a roughly 5 percentage-point decline through 2030. Although positive terminal installation expectations may boost cell production volumes, translating to some incremental demand, when converted to silver demand, a roughly 20% decline is anticipated this year. Over the long cycle, 2026 also marks a pivotal turning point in silver's industrial demand structure. The low-voltage electrical equipment sector, as a rigid support segment, exhibits strong irreplaceability in its silver demand. Emerging sectors such as new energy vehicles, PCBs, and SiC chips are rapidly expanding their end-market bases, and despite unchanged unit silver consumption, overall demand continues to grow steadily. Therefore, we maintain our core view that the gold/silver ratio will trend downward in the medium-to-long term — i.e., we are constructive on silver outperforming gold. The driving logic will gradually shift from rates and liquidity toward energy transition and industrial demand. Silver is transforming from a traditional precious metal into a strategically important industrial metal with rising exposure to photovoltaics, AI data centers, and grid upgrades, while supply remains highly inelastic due to its heavy dependence on lead-zinc and copper byproduct production. Once the global economy enters a rate-cutting cycle or real rates decline, silver's industrial elasticity will significantly amplify its upside potential, whereas gold, supported more by central bank buying and safe-haven demand, tends to follow a smoother trajectory.

Guangdong is a core cluster for China's wire and cable industry, with complete upstream and downstream support, prominent regional advantages, and market reach covering South China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Southeast Asia. The industry is now undergoing transformation. Overseas infrastructure and new energy markets are favorable for enterprises going global, but fluctuations in copper and aluminum raw material prices, capacity homogenization, and market involution continue to squeeze profits. Intelligent and digital transformation has become an urgent necessity for breaking through the industry deadlock. will be held on July 14-15, 2026 at Wyndham Hotel, Guangzhou Design Capital, Guangdong . SMM , together with Baotou Zhenxiong Copper Co., Ltd. , invites you to attend. The conference will leverage data from the entire industry chain and resources in and outside China, focusing on market assessment, transformation and upgrading, supply-demand matching, and empowering go-global strategies, helping local enterprises improve quality and expand markets, and promoting high-quality international development of the regional wire and cable industry. Click , and we look forward to meeting you at the conference. Shanghai Cun'an Industrial Co., Ltd. is located in the Shanghai Nonferrous Metals Trading Center, specializing in commodity trading and supply chain services mainly for nonferrous metals. It is one of the earliest enterprises in China to practice the integration of futures and spot. Starting as a startup, it has grown into an industry benchmark with annual sales exceeding 100 billion yuan and serving over 2,000 manufacturing enterprises, forging a high-quality development path with its own characteristics, and is recognized by the Shanghai municipal government as a top-tier player. Corporate Competitiveness Research-driven and Continuous Innovation The company's market share of copper cathode/aluminum trading volume has consistently held a leading position in the industry. In 2025, annual sales of copper cathode reached 2.3 million mt, and including other products (copper rod, aluminum rod, aluminum ingot, zinc ingot, nickel, silver, tin, lead, lithium carbonate, etc.), total sales reached 4 million mt. Having deeply cultivated the industry for 30 years, the company is annually recognized by professional industry platforms such as "SMM" as a "price submitter," "quality supplier," and other honors. Professional Team, Flexible Models When Shanghai Cun'an was first established, its core team had already experienced multiple market cycles in the commodity sector. Facing industry changes brought by the internet, the company made two important strategic decisions: first, to stick to its core business in nonferrous metals and extend deeply into supply chain services; second, to respond to the Belt and Road Initiative and steadily expand into the African market. Currently, the company has nearly 30 projects underway in Africa, with over 3,000 Chinese and foreign employees, building momentum for international market expansion. Solid Channels, Service First Guided by the national plan to accelerate the development of new-type international trade, the company has established subsidiaries in the Lin-gang Special Area of Shanghai, Singapore, and Hong Kong, actively deploying cross-border finance and trade businesses. Aligning with the Belt and Road Initiative, the company has invested in Africa, where its industries now span various sectors across the continent, including manufacturing of production entities, agriculture, warehousing and logistics, ore and recycled metals, among others. Corporate Vision The vigorous development of the bulk commodity industry is both the aspiration and mission of Cun’an. Cun’an is willing to join hands with its peers, working together to build a more honest, standardized, and efficient non-ferrous metal trade circle, jointly promoting the effective allocation of commodity resources in the real economy environment, and striving to enhance the competitiveness and industry discourse power of China’s non-ferrous metal industry. Contact Information Business Director: Xiong Li 138 1660 9892 Business Manager: Xiong Xicheng 130 4415 6111 SMM Conference Contact Chen Bo 183 7089 1981 chenbo@smm.cn

This week’s weekly TC for domestically produced Pb50 remained unchanged at an average of 200 yuan/mt Pb, while the average weekly TC for imported Pb60 was revised down to -$165/dmt. During the week, TCs for domestically produced standard ore held steady, but the market for high-grade lead concentrates (lead content above 55%) remained tight, with mainstream transactions primarily at zero or negative TCs. Additionally, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck Dachaidan in Haixi, Qinghai, during the week; according to SMM, lead and zinc mines in Qinghai were unaffected and production remained normal. For imported ore, limited arrivals and high sulphuric acid prices meant smelters had strong demand for ore, pushing TCs down further, with some silver-lead ore prices reported at -$260/dmt. Amid expectations for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, disruption to lead concentrate supply has been minor, but market estimates suggest that if sulphuric acid prices fall sharply, thereby impacting primary lead smelter production, lead TCs may only then have a chance of stopping their decline. In the short term, ore supply remains tight.

This week, the price spread between SGE T+D and the SHFE August contract remained in the range of 40-60 yuan/kg. As of Thursday, premiums for mainstream quotations of standard silver ingot in the Shanghai market against T+D rose to parity to slight premium, with transaction quotes mostly falling within the range of parity to a premium of 20 yuan/kg against SGE T+D. Silver prices this week were mainly driven by the US Fed's interest rate meeting in the early hours of Thursday and the formal signing and taking effect of the US-Iran memorandum of understanding. Downstream consumption was overall sluggish as silver prices rebounded slightly during the week. Inventories, as the holiday approached, some suppliers cleared their inventories, coupled with long-term contracts locked in and export quota reservations weakening the willingness to sell, and some upstream smelters started routine maintenance, social inventories of silver ingot in Shanghai and Shenzhen regions saw overall destocking.

[Price review] Silver prices stabilized and rebounded this week (6.15-6.18) after a continuous early decline. Easing US-Iran tensions saw both domestic and overseas futures hold up well, with the price center edging up slightly WoW. Market attention was focused on the Fed’s FOMC meeting early Thursday morning. The Fed kept the target range for the federal funds rate unchanged, the fourth straight hold, but the latest dot plot showed a generally more hawkish shift among officials—the majority expected no rate cuts this year, and nearly half saw further rate hikes as possible. The statement noted inflation remains above target, and rising energy costs and geopolitical risks add to inflation uncertainty. Fed Chairman Warsh reiterated at the press conference that the Fed is firmly committed to bringing inflation back to its 2% long-term goal and will not pivot to accommodative policy in the short term. Following the meeting, silver dipped briefly but then recovered on technical buying as expectations of further rate hikes did not materially increase. On the geopolitical front, a US-Iran memorandum of understanding was formally signed and took effect, kicking off a 60-day negotiation period. In industrial demand, premiums for mainstream quotations of national standard silver ingots against TD in the Shanghai market were basically flat WoW; mainstream quotations stayed at parity to slight premiums, with most trades concluded at parity to a premium of 20 yuan/kg against TD on the Shanghai Gold Exchange. Downstream consumption turned sluggish as silver prices rebounded slightly. On the inventory side, as the holiday approached, some suppliers cleared their stock, while the willingness to sell was weak given locked long-term contracts and reserved export quotas. Additionally, some upstream smelters started routine maintenance. Social inventories of silver ingots in Shanghai and Shenzhen saw overall destocking. As for the gold/silver ratio, the LBMA gold/silver ratio was around 67 as of June 17. [Key data] Bearish: The June FOMC meeting kept rates at 3.50-3.75% unchanged, but the dot plot showed the majority of members expected no rate cuts this year and some supported further hikes, indicating an overall hawkish Fed stance. Fed Chairman Warsh said inflation remains clearly above the 2% target, monetary policy will stay restrictive, and clear rate-cut signals are unlikely in the near term. The U.S. labor market remains resilient, with unemployment around 4.3%, dampening market expectations for rapid easing. Bullish: A US-Iran memorandum of understanding was formally signed and took effect, initiating a 60-day negotiation period. Peru's energy crisis persists, with the nationwide state of emergency extended to year-end. Already 12 large mines have adopted staggered production, and May silver output is expected to decline 5-8%. The global supply-demand gap remains, offering some floor support to silver prices. [Near-term Focus] June 20: US June University of Michigan consumer sentiment index preliminary; June 26: US Q1 GDP final; June 27: US May core PCE price index; Key focus: changes in US inflation data, developments in the Middle East situation, and the progress of strait reopening. [Price Forecast] Silver is expected to hold up well next week. Ongoing attention is needed on the uncertainty surrounding the US-Iran situation. Trump has threatened Iran with further strikes if it fails to comply with the terms of the agreement. After the Fed’s June policy meeting concluded, market uncertainty about the policy path temporarily subsided. Although the Fed’s overall tone remains hawkish, expectations for additional rate hikes have not increased. Silver’s previous bearish factors have been largely released. However, US Treasury yields will continue to exert some pressure on silver, and prices may move sideways. On the domestic fundamentals side, downstream enterprises maintain rigid demand-based purchases while pushing for lower prices. Selling pressure on low-priced spot cargo has eased, and social inventory of spot silver ingots has been destocking overall. Yet sentiment has not fully recovered. Mainstream spot transaction discounts/premiums are expected to remain within the range of parity to a premium of 20 yuan/kg against the Shanghai Gold Exchange TD contract. A shift toward higher premiums in the short term appears unlikely.