Copper scrap market to remain stable, says Aurubis

By  Paul Ploumis 18 Aug 2015  Last updated at  03:23:01 GMT

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster):  The Aurubis Group (Aurubis)- the world’s largest copper recycler expects supply of copper concentrates to remain stable in the near term. It also foresees considerable improvement in treatment and refining charges during the upcoming quarter when compared with the previous year.

Meantime, the company reported excellent operating earnings for the first nine months of the fiscal year 2014-’15. The earnings during the first three quarters totaled Euro 261 million, as against the earnings of Euro 75 million during the corresponding nine-month period last fiscal. The Aurubis group revenues at Euro 8,467 million during the nine-month period this fiscal has exceeded the previous year revenues of Euro 8,297 million on account of higher metal prices in Euro terms.

According to Aurubis, high treatment and refining charges for copper concentrate and copper scrap, improved sulfuric acid prices, higher cathode premiums and resilient US dollar contributed to the good results. Furthermore, the company has been successful in operating its facilities with extremely high productivity rates.

The markets for copper products continued to remain varies, noted Aurubis. The European demand for copper rods and shapes remained high, whereas the demand for flat rolled products continued to remain subdued in the European and the US markets.

Looking ahead to the final quarter of the fiscal, the company expects the copper scrap market to remain stable with good refining charges. The European demand for rods and shapes may witness slight slowdown. The European and North American markets for flat rolled products may also remain subdued. However, concentrate throughput and cathode output during the fiscal are likely to exceed when matched with the previous fiscal.

Aurubis is a leading integrated copper group that produces copper cathodes from copper concentrates, copper scrap and recycling raw materials.