The China Smelters Purchase Team (CSPT) decided on a lower guide price for treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) for copper concentrate processing in the second quarter of 2023 at $90 per tonne and 9.0 cents per pound at the quarterly meeting on Thursday, March 30. While the guidance for the charges was set at $93 per tonne and 9.3 cents per pound for the first quarter of this year.
Copper concentrate supply was affected by a sharp increase in the production interference rate of copper mines in Chile, Peru, Indonesia, Panama, and other places in the first quarter of 2023. However, the raw material inventory of Chinese copper smelters was at a high level in the first quarter, and intensive maintenance will begin in the second quarter. Therefore, the planned copper concentrate feeding volume decreased, partially offsetting the impact of supply disruptions. Spot TC slowly fell from about US $85/dry metric tonne at the beginning of the year to a low of about US $75/dmt in mid-March, and then began to rise again. Mysteel standard clean copper concentrate TC was US $80.1/dmt on March 29.
It was US $77.0-80.3/dmt in February, with an average price of US $79.0/dmt, which decreased by 3.9% month on month and increased by 21.5% year on year. Mysteel copper concentrate (grade 26%) spot price was US $2,161-2,283/dmt in February, with an average price of US $2,210/dmt, which increased by 0.7% month on month and decreased by 10.4% year on year.
Data Source: Mysteel
The production interference of overseas copper mines will be eased, and mine operations and shipments will resume in the second quarter of 2023. At the same time, in addition to the production of projects such as Kamoa, Quellaveco, and Grasberg, which will continue to increase to meet the rated output, the QB Phase II project as the largest new project in 2023, will also start to boost overall production. However, there is significant uncertainty regarding the supply interference of copper concentrates, which should be continuously paid attention to.
China's copper smelters will undergo intensive maintenance in the second quarter, which is expected to affect the copper concentrate feed volume of nearly 300,000 tonnes (metal contained), basically the same as the same period of last year. The maintenance in the third quarter is expected to restrict the output of 100,000-150,000 tonnes (metal contained) Mysteel tracked so far. On the other hand, the Guoxing project will be put into production in the second quarter.
Written by Edenlis Huang, huangting@mysteel.com
Edited by Paula Xu, xuzhongping@mysteel.com