Subdued Spot Trades In Copper Concentrate Market

As of last Friday, the SMM Imported Copper Concentrate Index (weekly) stood at $84.75/mt, $0.39/mt higher than the previous week. During last week, some market participants had not yet returned from Chile and some participated in the SMM Copper Summit in Yantai, which led to relatively quiet inquiries and quotes during the week.

There were few spot trades as a result. According to SMM, there was a transaction of 20,000 mt of copper produced by Escondida and Collahuasi between smelters and traders, scheduled for shipments in June. Traded TCs were $85/mt.

At present, traders’ quotes for clean seaborne copper concentrate scheduled for shipment in June stand at $81-82/mt. Offers by domestic smelters exceeded $85/mt The price coefficient of Cu 20% domestic ore stood at 88.5-89.5%.

SMM expects the imported copper concentrate TCs will continue to rise in the second quarter. Chinese smelters, including China Daye Non-Ferrous Metals, Xinjiang Wuxin Copper Industry, Jiangxi Copper Headquarters, Tongling Jinguan, and Qinghai Copper, has undertaken concentrated maintenance in late March or April. This will weaken the demand for spot copper concentrate.

Meanwhile, port capacity in America is still recovering. The disruption at overseas mines has abated and Quebrada Blanca Phase 2 in Chile has been commissioned, growing the supply. The inventory of copper concentrate at five Chinese ports was 596,000 mt in the week ending April 28, a decline of 28,000 mt from a week earlier.