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The news means that Aurubis’ premium has remained unchanged for 2023, 2024 and now 2025.
“Due to the expected growing demand for refined copper in Europe, driven by healthy global megatrends like investments in the green transition, in combination with a tight supply market in Europe and our strong sustainability offering, we leave the 2025 Aurubis Copper premium unchanged compared to this year at 228 US$/t,” Martin Sjöberg, Aurubis senior vice president, commercial said.
Some participants had been expecting an increase in the European premium with copper concentrate treatment charges (TCs) at unprecedented lows. Low copper TCs can reduce smelters’ margins as they are the fees smelters charge to process concentrate into copper.
“It’s a bit of a surprise as the rumor was they would increase dramatically because of [low] TCs,” one consumer source told Fastmarkets. Other trader and producer sources Fastmarkets spoke to shared this sentiment.
Fastmarkets’ copper concentrates TC index, cif Asia Pacific fell to $(1.90) per tonne in the latest assessment on September 20, from $0.10 per tonne a week earlier. This compares with a TC of $87.70 per tonne on September 29, 2023, the level before the premium was announced last year.
Some market participants, meanwhile, pointed at weak copper demand in Europe as a reason for an unchanged annual premium.
Fastmarkets’ fortnightly assessment of the copper grade A cathode premium, delivered Germany was $170-190 per tonne on September 17, down from $180-200 per tonne on September 3 and $160-200 per tonne at the start of the year.
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