In recent years, the European and US copper industries have significantly accelerated their push into recycled raw materials, and participants are no longer limited to traditional secondary copper smelters. From integrated smelters such as Aurubis, Boliden and Glencore to wire and cable and copper processing enterprises such as Nexans and Wieland, different industry segments are simultaneously improving their copper scrap recycling, preprocessing, smelting and internal recycling capacity.
This means the development logic of the European and US secondary copper industry is changing: recycled raw materials are no longer just a supplement to primary copper supply, but are gradually becoming an important strategic resource for enterprises to ensure raw material security, stabilize profit sources and reduce product carbon footprint.
Aurubis Is Not an Isolated Case: European and US Companies Are Forming Two Expansion Paths
The first path is integrated smelters expanding their capacity to process complex recycled raw materials.
Data released by Aurubis for the first nine months of fiscal 2025/26 show that operating pre-tax profit in its multimetal recycling business increased to €87 million from €36 million a year earlier. The Hamburg complex recycling project, which started production in July 2026, can add processing capacity of more than 30 kt/year for complex recycled raw materials containing copper, lead and sulfur. After full ramp-up, the US Richmond project is planned to process about 180 kt/year of complex recycled raw materials. However, the company also said that the ramp-up time for each stage of the project will be extended by about six months, indicating that it still takes time for complex raw material processing capacity to move from nominal commissioning to stable output.
This model is not unfamiliar in Europe and the US. Boliden's Rönnskär smelter in Sweden currently has recycling capacity of 120 kt/year for electronic material, with feedstock mainly comprising European electronic scrap such as circuit boards. Glencore's Horne smelter in Canada can process copper concentrates, electronic scrap, precious-metal materials and other feedstocks; its 840 kt/year figure is total processing capacity for copper- and precious-metal-bearing material, not standalone copper scrap capacity.
The second path is wire and cable and copper processing enterprises extending upstream into recycling and secondary refining.
Nexans has invested more than €90 million in Lens, France, to build a continuous casting and secondary refining project. The company's latest plan shows that the project will release up to 80 kt/year of copper scrap recycling capacity from 2027, with feedstock explicitly including copper cathode and copper scrap, and with output mainly used for copper rod production. Unlike complex-feed smelters, these projects compete more directly for high-grade copper scrap.
Copper processing enterprise Wieland is also building recycling and refining centers in Shelbyville, US, and Vöhringen, Germany. Previously disclosed related investments can increase the company's own annual recycling capacity by about 180 kt in total. In fiscal 2024/25, the average recycled raw material share in Wieland's products reached 82.4%, and the company plans to raise it above 90% by 2030. Its recycling centers in the US and Germany not only process internal scrap but also purchase third-party copper-bearing scrap, reflecting that large copper processing enterprises are reducing the impact of tight copper cathode supply by building their own recycling systems.
Why Are European and US Companies Concentrating on Improving Recycling Capacity Now?
The recent concentrated push by European and US companies into secondary copper is not driven purely by environmental protection or carbon reduction considerations, but is the combined result of copper mine-side supply constraints, raw material security needs of copper semis enterprises, improving profitability of recycling operations, and resource security policies in Europe and the US.
First, tight copper concentrate supply is prompting traditional smelters to expand raw material sources and reduce earnings dependence on concentrate TCs. Aurubis's report shows that in the first nine months of fiscal 2025/26, the contribution of concentrate and recycled raw material treatment charges to gross profit in its traditional smelting and copper products business fell from 19% to 12%, while spot copper concentrate TC/RCs remained in negative territory during the same period. In contrast, its multimetal recycling business benefited from complex-feed refining charges and recovery income from copper, gold, silver and other metals, with a significant improvement in profit.
Although recycled raw materials cannot completely replace copper concentrates, they can broaden smelters' raw material options and increase recovery income from precious metals and other associated metals. With copper, gold, silver and other metal prices at elevated levels, the potential metal value in complex copper-bearing material has increased further; therefore, increasing recycling capacity is becoming an important way for integrated smelters to diversify raw material risk and enhance earnings resilience.
Second, for copper semis enterprises such as Nexans and Wieland, the main purpose of investing in recycling operations is to control high-grade raw material sources and build a closed-loop supply chain from end-of-life product recycling to copper semis production. By recovering recycled raw materials, these enterprises can reduce their dependence on externally purchased copper cathode and mitigate the impact of spot premiums, transportation and supply fluctuations.
At the same time, end-user customers in power grids, automobiles, data centers, construction and other sectors are raising requirements for the recycled content and carbon footprint of products. For copper semis and wire and cable enterprises, in-house recycling capability not only secures raw materials, but is also gradually becoming a competitive advantage in meeting customer certification requirements, developing low-carbon products and winning long-term orders.
Third, Europe and the US have simultaneously elevated copper supply chain security to a strategic level. The EU has listed copper as a critical and strategic raw material and proposed that by 2030 at least 25% of the EU's annual consumption of strategic raw materials should come from recycling within the EU. In 2025, the US formally added copper to the USGS critical minerals list; prior to that, the US government had already defined copper as a critical material for national security, economic strength and industrial resilience, and included copper concentrates, copper cathode, copper scrap and copper derivatives in supply chain security reviews.
This means the policy goal of increasing local recycling capacity in Europe and the US is no longer just reducing carbon emissions, but also reducing dependence on external raw materials and processing capacity. Local enterprises' expansion of recycling, preprocessing, smelting and refining facilities helps keep more copper scrap and complex copper-bearing material within local industry chains, and improves the stability of domestic copper supply systems amid mine-side supply disruptions.
What Scrap Grades Will New Capacity Actually Compete For?
When analyzing European and US recycling projects, one cannot simply add up all announced processing capacity and equate it directly with new demand for refined copper and copper scrap.
The advantage of integrated smelters such as Aurubis, Boliden and Glencore lies mainly in processing electronic scrap, circuit boards, industrial residues, anode slime, shredded material and other complex multimetal feedstocks. These projects have relatively high tolerance for feedstock grades, and their revenue is not derived solely from copper.
Wire and cable and copper processing enterprises such as Nexans and Wieland, on the other hand, need clean raw materials suitable for direct production of copper rod, copper ingot or copper billet, and their purchasing scope is closer to M-grade bare bright copper and some #1 copper scrap. As a result, these projects are likely to have a more direct impact on international trade flows of high-grade copper scrap.
The raw material boundaries of the two types of enterprises are not completely separate, but their competitive focus differs. Future growth in local demand in Europe and the US may first drive further separation between high-grade copper scrap and complex feedstocks with higher metal value; for low-grade mixed copper scrap, the impact will also depend on preprocessing capacity, environmental costs and final metal recovery rates.
Market Outlook
In the short term, new European and US recycling capacity is not enough to trigger a cliff-like decline in local copper scrap exports. Complex projects usually require a long period of equipment commissioning, feed mix optimization and supplier certification, and the nominal processing capacity announced by enterprises does not equal actual metal output.
In the medium term, however, as projects such as Aurubis Richmond and Nexans Lens gradually ramp up production and processing enterprises such as Wieland expand closed-loop purchasing, the European and US copper scrap market will gradually shift from being driven by Asian demand in the past to competition between European and US internal consumption and Asian import demand.
Among these, high-quality copper scrap will be directly supported by capacity expansion at copper processing enterprises; electronic scrap, circuit boards and polymetallic residues will increasingly flow to large integrated smelters with complex smelting capabilities. For Asian copper enterprises, what needs to be watched in the future is no longer just total copper scrap exports from Europe and the US, but the extent of decline in the share of high-grade and furnace-ready feedstock that can truly enter the international spot market.
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