Entering the fourth quarter, the 2023 copper concentrate long-term contract negotiation gradually started, and the representatives of China's head smelters will also negotiate with overseas miners to finalize the benchmark of the 2023 copper concentrate long-term contract TC.
Several large smelters expect the copper concentrate long-term contract Benchmark TC to reach more than USD 90/dry tonne in 2023, or even the mid-$90s. The smelter believes that oversupply of copper concentrate in 2023 will become very significant, and added that in the near future, spot TC may reach $100/dmt.
"Although everyone has always mentioned the disruptions of the mine, from the perspective of the past two years, the disruptions of the smelter cannot be ignored," one smelter said. In 2022, smelters in China, Japan, South Korea, Kazakhstan and other districts have experienced unplanned maintenance/shutdowns.
According to Mysteel research, it is expected that the utilization rate of China's primary smelting capacity will be 87.2% in 2022. In addition to planned maintenance, furnace failure, epidemic, power shortage, financial situation and other factors have also brought unplanned production shutdown, maintenance, and material feeding reduction. According to Mysteel's database, there were different smelters reducing or briefly stopping feeding materials for several days in 7 months among the 9 months of the three quarters.
At the same time, the commissioning of a number of new expansion projects has been delayed, including the world's largest new copper smelting project - Hongsheng Copper (400,000 tonnes production capacity), and the actual consumption of copper concentrate in China was significantly lower than originally planned.
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