Spot copper with May invoices attract more trading on less supply

The ongoing delay by the White House on potential refined copper import tariffs under President Donald Trump is accelerating structural dislocations across the global physical copper market. Although the statutory timeline for U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to deliver a recommendation has lapsed without a public ruling, the regulatory ambiguity itself has become a primary driver of global trade dynamics. By keeping the tariff threat active, the U.S. has sustained an elevated delivery premium that continues to incentivize aggressive physical inflows into American ports. Over the past 18 months, this mechanism has allowed the country to build a substantial domestic stockpile of a critical metal essential to both green energy transition and advanced technology sectors. However, this deliberate accumulation has come at the direct expense of liquidity in non-U.S. markets. Physical metal is being systematically diverted away from international hubs, driving rapid inventory drawdowns across both London Metal Exchange and Shanghai Futures Exchange warehouses. As regional pricing premiums widen and trade flows skew disproportionately toward the United States, prolonged tariff uncertainty risks transforming temporary arbitrage plays into a permanent, structural fracture in the global copper market.

At around 15:30 on July 26, a safety incident occurred during production and construction at the underground Area 3 of Yinman Mining, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Xingye Silver&Tin, resulting in one fatality and no other injuries. On July 28, Xingye Silver&Tin announced for the first time that the underground mining areas of Yinman Mining had been suspended, while the beneficiation plant remained in normal operation. At that time, Yinman Mining had approximately 350,000 mt of surface ore, which was expected to support the beneficiation plant's production for about two and a half months. On July 30, Yinman Mining further received an "On-site Disposition Decision" (Xi) Yingji Xianjue [2026] No. 260 issued by the Xiwu Banner Emergency Management Bureau, requiring the simultaneous suspension of the beneficiation and tailings systems. As of the announcement disclosure, Yinman Mining's mining system, beneficiation and tailings systems had all been suspended. The previous plan to sustain beneficiation production using ore inventory could no longer be implemented, directly impacting mineral product production. Yinman Mining has an existing mining and beneficiation capacity of 1.65 million mt per year and is the core tin-silver mine under Xingye Silver&Tin. Xingye Silver&Tin did not separately disclose Yinman Mining's actual copper metal production in 2025. According to the original project design, Yinman Mining's copper concentrates contain approximately 1,100 mt of copper metal per year; Xingye Silver&Tin's consolidated mine-produced copper output in 2025 was 2,380.89 mt. As Yinman Mining's copper production scale is relatively small, this suspension will have limited impact on China's overall supply of copper concentrates, with the impact expected to be mainly concentrated on products such as tin and silver. Going forward, attention needs to be paid to the progress of accident investigation, tailings system rectification, and production resumption acceptance.

Due to tight supply of tax-included copper scrap, supply of secondary blister copper and copper anode in China is expected to tighten further in August. In the week from July 24 to July 30, SMM's weekly operating rate of secondary copper anode enterprises in China recorded 54.05%, and is expected to decline by 8.65 percentage points WoW next week to 45.40%. SMM's quotes for blister copper RCs in China currently stand at 600-800 yuan/mt, and copper anode RCs at 450-550 yuan/mt, both having fallen to the lowest levels this year.