Spot availability of copper scrap is now being limited by a plummeting commodity price in March because suppliers have refused to destock at the price level.
"At this discounted price level, some copper scrap suppliers could suffer losses. The price of scrap cannot even cover the processing costs so suppliers have become reluctant to sell," a source with a major copper refinery in China said.High-purity copper scrap, used as a raw material by fabricators and refineries, is sold at a discount to the copper metal price. When the copper price declines, the discount typically narrows, resulting in a smaller gap between the copper price and the outright price of...