Copper concentrate treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) rose at the end of February, having stalled in the previous week.
Fastmarkets'
copper concentrates TC/RC index, cif Asia Pacific came in at $66.80 per tonne / 6.68 cents per lb on Friday February 28, reaching an 11-month high.
The index is up from $65.80 / 6.58 cents the week prior and $65.80 / 6.58 cents a fortnight ago.
Chinese smelter demand remains limited
Spot TC/RCs remain on an upward trajectory due to a lack of significant demand from smelters. Some smelters in China brought forward planned maintenance to offset the impact of limited end-user copper demand stemming from the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) lockdown, and to stem rising sulfuric acid stocks - a byproduct of copper concentrate processing.
"Our sulfuric acid can only be sold to intra-province fertilizer plants [due to logistics constrains] at 1 yuan per tonne for...