Ultra-Low COMEX Copper Inventories Trigger Rare Short Squeeze, Driving Price Spreads to Extreme Levels

Recently, LME copper inventories increased, the futures-spot structure shifted, and China's import arbitrage continued to climb. Today, downstream demand for imported copper in the Shanghai region clearly recovered, while supply was relatively tight. In the morning session, cargoes at Lingang were almost swept clean, and the spot copper premium rose rapidly.

The recent COMEX-LME copper price spread has narrowed, with the COMEX copper 2610 and LME 3M contract spread inverting, indicating a decline in the US pull effect on copper. On September 14, LME copper inventories stood at 249,225 mt, up 6,325 mt from the previous day. With the continued increase in LME copper inventories recently, the LME nearby contracts have shifted to a Contango structure and widened.

Atlantic Copper has formally inaugurated its CirCular advanced metals recycling plant at the Huelva metallurgical complex in Spain. The project represents an investment of more than €550 million and can process up to 60,000 tonnes per year of non-ferrous fractions derived from waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). Integrated into Atlantic Copper's existing metallurgical operations, CirCular is designed to recover copper, gold, silver, palladium, platinum and nickel from secondary materials. The facility is described as the first of its kind in Southern Europe and has been recognized as a strategic project by both the European Commission and the Andalusian government. The start-up adds significant new European capacity for processing complex copper-bearing electronic scrap within an established primary smelting system.