Treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) for spot market copper concentrates dropped significantly during the second half of January, with smelters coming to the market for tonnages below benchmark rates and mine sales going at aggressive numbers.
Metal Bulletin's copper concentrate TC/RC index dropped by $9.4 per tonne/0.94 cents per lb. Of that drop, $3.2/0.32 cents was due to the addition of a counterparty factor to the normalization process, bringing the index closer to a traded market mid-point.The market fell by $6.2/0.62 cents elsewhere because smelters in and outside of China locked in spot deals largely in the mid-to-high $70s/7 cents and bids on mine tenders remained close to $50/5 cents.Direct copper concentrate trades for spot delivery of 70,000 tonnes were reported to Metal Bulletin over the past two weeks.Several tenders for mined tonnage are...