Spot treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) for copper concentrates have shot up to a 10-and-a-half-month high with market sellers scrambling to find smelters willing to take cargoes.
The Fastmarkets copper concentrates TC index, cif Asia Pacific, which tracks a market mid-point, rose to $65.80 per tonne / 6.58 cents per lb on Friday February 14, up by $9.40 / 0.94 cents week on week and its highest since late March 2019.The sudden increase is the biggest since Fastmarkets started pricing the market weekly in April 2019 and comes as smelters across China have cut spot allocations while measures taken to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus there have...