Pre-holiday stockpiling bolsters Jan imports of copper anode

SHANGHAI, Mar 6 (SMM) – On the backdrop of expanding smelting capacity and limited resources domestically, China’s imports of copper anode rose substantially in January as smelters stockpiled raw materials for the Chinese New Year holiday.

According to the latest data from the Customs, China imported 86,400 mt of copper anode in January, up 61% month on month and 22% year on year.

Blister copper accounted for 68,000 mt, or 79%, while the rest were copper anode plates.

With stricter policies over scrap imports, most secondary copper smelters replaced copper scrap with blister copper and copper anode plates in production.

Chile, South Africa, Namibia and Tanzania were the top four exporters of copper anode to China in January, and volumes from the four countries took up 75% of the total.

About half of January’s imports of copper anode went to copper giant Jiangxi Copper.