Copper concentrate treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) dropped further at the end of January, with smelters in China breaking away from the quarterly procurement price floor amid an outlook for a tightening in supply later this year.
Fastmarkets' copper concentrate Asia-Pacific TC import index fell to $79 per tonne/7.9 cents per lb on Thursday January 31, the lowest since mid-June, when the index was recorded at $77 per tonne/7.7 cents per lb.Purchasing interest is surprisingly high ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday in early February, with multiple parcels of copper concentrates sold to Chinese smelters for post-holiday production. Most parcels for Chinese buyers over the past two weeks were reported at a TC level ranging from the low-$80s to $90 per tonne, with both clean and complex qualities.TCs for all transactions on a cif China basis captured by Fastmarkets were settled below the $92-per-tonne mark, a pricing floor for the first quarter set by the group of 10-largest Chinese copper smelters known as the Chinese Smelters Purchase Team.Copper concentrate flows into China increased by 13.7% in 2018,...