Spot Copper Concentrate TCs Rose Further

SHANGHAI, Apr 24 (SMM) – As of last Friday April 21, the SMM Imported Copper Concentrate Index (weekly) stood at $84.36/mt, $1.7/mt higher than the previous week. Last week, most of the market participants went to Chile to attend the CESCO meeting, so the spot transactions were quiet. According to SMM, during the week, there was a transaction between a smelters in north China and a trader for seaborne clean ores scheduled to be loaded in July. Traded TCs were around $85/mt. Traders’ offers for copper concentrate from Escondida and Collahuasi scheduled for shipment in June stand at $81-82/mt so far, and the price coefficient of Cu 20% domestic ore is 88.5-89.5%.

According to foreign media reports, overseas mining companies have accelerated mergers and acquisitions again after a lapse of many years: BHP will acquire the Australian company for A$9.6 billion ($6.4 billion), which has been approved by the Federal Court of Australia; Newmont Mining is offering to purchase Newcrest Mining, with an estimated value of A$29.4 billion ($19.54 billion); Glencore added $8.2 billion to a previous $23 billion offer for Teck Resources, but the latter said it had rejected.

SMM expects the imported copper concentrate TCs will continue to rise in the second quarter. Chinese smelters, including China Daye Non-Ferrous Metals, Xinjiang Wuxin Copper Industry, Jiangxi Copper Headquarters, Tongling Jinguan, and Qinghai Copper, will undertake concentrated maintenance in late March or April. This will weaken the demand for spot copper concentrates. Meanwhile, port capacity in America will continue to recover, and the disruption at overseas mines will decrease, accompanied with the commissioning of the Quebrada Blanca Phase 2 in Chile, growing supply.

The inventory of copper concentrate at five Chinese ports was 624,000 mt in the week ending April 21, a decline of 4,700 mt from a week earlier. The disruption of shipments from South American copper mines in January 2023 is reflected in the imports of copper ore and copper concentrate in March 2023, which stood at 2.02 million mt, a year-on-year decrease of 7.5%, and a month-on-month decrease of 11.2%.