TCs of Spot Copper Concentrates Rose to Nearly $74-75/mt with the Improvement of Spot Trading

SHANGHAI, Aug 15 (SMM) - As of last Friday August 12, the SMM Imported Copper Concentrate Index (Weekly) stood at $74.38/mt, $1/mt higher than the previous week. Spot copper concentrate trading improved slightly last week.  Traded TCs stood at $71-72/mt between mines and smelters, and a smelter purchased with spot TCs of nearly $74-75/mt, which were mainly scheduled to be shipped from September and October. Rumour had it that spot copper concentrates at Qinhuangdao Port were resold at the TCs of $88-89/mt last week.

On the news front, disturbances on the supply side eased. BHP offered $5.82 billion to purchase Oz Minerals, which was rejected. In the second quarter of 2022, Oz Minerals produced 27,400 mt of copper, down 16.9% YoY and 8.6% MoM, which was caused by the damage of the conveyor belt of the Carrapateena raw material processing system. According to the customs, in July 2022, China imported 1.9 million mt of copper concentrate, up 0.6% year-on-year, but down 7.8% month-on-month. From January to July, the imports totalled 14.37 million mt, up 7.4% YoY.

The reselling of spot copper concentrates at Qinhuangdao Port did not cast a huge impact on the spot market. Raw materials of most large smelters were mainly obtained through long-term orders, and some smelters got short-term restocking demand. Buyers quoted the TCs of clean ore at $74-75/mt, while the sellers offered $71-72/mt. The pricing coefficient of domestic spot Cu 20% copper concentrate stood at 89-90% on a delivery-to-factory basis.