African copper suppliers trying to cash in on record price struggle to find cargo space

Africa-origin copper shipments were facing delays as long as two months amid a lack of vessel space and increased numbers of stoppages of port operations, industry sources told Fastmarkets on Friday May 14.

Three sources with copper shipments departing Zambia and Democratic Republic of Congo said that the arrival dates of their cargoes at destinations across Asia and Europe have been postponed from May until the end of July.
"There is no space to load copper products, even if we are willing to pay much more," one major Africa-based copper supplier source said. "Given the copper price rally, we do want to sell as much copper as possible at this price, and we really don't mind paying more."

The copper,...

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