Under the proposals, Fastmarkets will publish the index weekly instead of twice-monthly. The chemical specification of what Fastmarkets considers to be clean standard-grade concentrates would also change slightly in line with recent moves observed in physical spot market business.
The consultation period regarding these proposals will end one month from the date of this pricing notice with changes taking place, subject to market feedback, from April 5.
Proposal to publish copper TC/RC index on a weekly basis
Fastmarkets currently publishes the index twice a month – on the 15th and the last working days of every month.
Considering the growing spot liquidity of trade in copper concentrates and heightened volatility of TC/RCs paid for material, Fastmarkets proposes to publish the index every Friday by 3pm London time.
The proposed frequency transition from fortnightly to weekly is intended to better capture and reflect movements in the spot market for copper concentrates.
Fastmarkets has made considerable efforts to engage with the market over the past two years and is confident sufficient data will be collected weekly to form the basis of what is a price weighted towards transactions.
For the same purpose, Fastmarkets is also looking to update the specification used in the calculation of the index value.
Revising the specification
Given the complexity and uniqueness of copper concentrate material, Fastmarkets reviewed the specifications of almost 100 brands before choosing its base specification for its copper concentrates index at the time of launch in 2014.
Over the past five years, the specifications of these brands have undergone notable changes, especially in their copper content, largely due to a global decline in ore grades, according to feedback gathered by Fastmarkets.
Following the review of dozens of updated specifications for popular brands, Fastmarkets now proposes to revise lower the copper content per tonne of concentrate for the base specification to 26% from 28% currently.
Fastmarkets also proposes to widen the copper content range for accepted data points into the index calculation to a minimum of 18% and a maximum of 37% from the current range of 22-37%. These data points would then be normalized to the new 26% base specification.
In addition, Fastmarkets proposes changes to other chemical elements as detailed in the below table:
All other normalization steps in the index calculation, including the copper content coefficient, brand coefficient and the counterparty netback, will remain the same under these proposals.
If you have any comments on these proposed changes, or if you would like to provide price information by becoming a data submitter to the copper TCR/RC index, please contact Archie Hunter/Julian Luk by email at pricing@fastmarkets.com. Please add the subject heading FAO: AH/JL re: copper concs TC/RC index.
To see all Fastmarkets’ pricing methodology and specification documents, please go to https://www.fastmarkets.com/about-us/methodology.
