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The 2026 copper negotiations will be the “toughest year yet” and US tariff policy poses the greatest threat to copper markets, according to panelists speaking at the Fastmarkets’ copper webinar on November 19.
The discussion featured panelists Scott Crooks, principal analyst at CODELCO, Mehdi Lemsagued, vice president of commercial and marketing at Managem Group, and Andrew Cole, principal analyst at Fastmarkets. It was moderated by Julienne Raboca, senior price reporter at Fastmarkets.
CODELCO, the National Copper Corporation of Chile, is a state-owned Chilean company and the world’s largest producer of copper.
Managem Group is Morocco’s largest private mining company operating from Switzerland producing and trading copper concentrates alongside other base metals, with the aim of developing a copper smelter down the line.
Sally Zhang, Asia team lead for non-ferrous metals presented a recap of copper in 2025.
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Crooks said the 2026 benchmark talks will be more difficult than in previous years. “I think this is probably the year we see the most amount of interest around what’s happening in the benchmark. It’s obviously very uncertain as to where we’re going to go with such a big difference between last year’s benchmark and current spot.”
Fastmarkets calculated the weekly copper concentrates TC index, cif Asia Pacific — the midpoint between smelter and trader buying level — at $(65.40) per tonne on Friday November 21, down by $0.20 per tonne from $(65.20) per tonne a week prior.
Chilean copper miner Antofagasta has agreed to sell copper concentrate to Jiangxi Copper at treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) of $21.25 per tonne/ 2.125 cents per lb for 2025.
Regional fragmentation and different contract structures across smelter regions mean “each region might need its own specificities,” Crooks noted. “Regional realities do matter, so maybe for this year, we’re starting to see more of a formal move towards regional benchmarks, which would more accurately reflect the local nuance.”
“Everything [is] in stalemate,” a market participant in Shanghai told Fastmarkets on Thursday, after sources said that Antofagasta had started negotiating in the double negative numbers, moving down to the single digits by Wednesday November 26.
Key watchpoints for 2026:
Smelters will not be uniformly devastated by negative treatment charges in 2026, Lemsagued said, pointing to strong gold and sulfuric acid revenues as critical offsets. “There are a lot of byproducts… the smelters are generating free metals on precious metals. For example, sulfuric acid prices… [and then you also factor] cathode premiums that are going up.”
Lemsagued noted that “disruptions from Russia on the sulfur” have “increased significantly the sulfur prices,” and that gold fundamentals remain strong overall.
But the full impact will hit smelters only when existing contracts roll over. Crooks cautioned that newer operations without established relationships face the most pressure.
The smelters who are most at risk are the newer ones, who haven’t maybe made long-term connections. They don’t have those long-term contracts, and they were the ones that are at the back of their queue when it comes to material.
Lemsagued stressed that each smelter’s situation is different. “Every smelter has to go through their economics. It depends on the technology… and the capacity of each smelter to face resilient times.”
Cole challenged the narrative around smelter closures as a solution to market imbalance, arguing that the real problem is insufficient mine growth relative to demand drivers including electrification and artificial intelligence.
“The smelters are looking forward and have invested in the extra demand for the energy transition. They know the world needs more copper.”
The analyst added: “Mine production hasn’t kept pace with that view that we need more copper for those demand megatrends.”
Market rebalancing will come faster through brownfield expansions and existing mine overperformance when prices encourage it, rather than waiting for new mines to be developed. Cole cited examples in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where producers are outperforming expectations. “Maybe we need higher prices for that, maybe we need deeper negative TCs for longer. But the fix will need to come from the mine side.”
Lemsagued projected base-case copper cathode prices for 2026 in the $10,000-$11,000 per tonne range, with worst-case scenarios at $8,000/t and bull cases at $12,000/t or higher.
But Cole cautioned against point-estimate confidence. “There are so many, and quite extreme variables, that could really send things sharply one way or the other. It might only take a few Truth Social posts from Donald Trump to really cause another mess. And, you never know when the next supply disruption’s going to happen, and they can be influential in a market so worried about availability.”
Trading houses are bidding aggressively for concentrates in deeply negative TC territory, betting on a projected 300,000-tonne copper concentrate deficit in 2026 and competing among newcomers to build market presence.
Nicholas Snowdon of Mercuria said that the deficit will be around 500,000 next year, speaking at the World Copper Conference Asia 2025 on Wednesday in Shanghai.
Lemsagued explained the trader mentality: “They are pricing forward because they’re seeing deficits coming on the copper, and I think this is making sense.” Traders view current aggressive bidding as long-term positioning rather than immediate profit-making.
It’s not an easy game to buy, to develop relationships. So you have to be actively present in order to prepare the future. The investments of today are the results of tomorrow.
Crooks noted much of the aggression comes from new entrants. “A lot of what we’re seeing in terms of the miner-trader [activity] is driven by these few new entrants who are really trying to build presence and trying to build their book, and they’re prepared to bid aggressively.”
The widening spread between trader and smelter offers reflects asymmetric buying. “Limited buying on the one side versus aggressive buying on the other side” is “driving a spread,” Crooks added, with “the trader to smelter TC” remaining relatively flat this year.
Fastmarkets’ assessment of the copper concentrates TC implied smelters purchase, cif Asia Pacific stood at $(42.90) per tonne on Friday, compared with $(42.70) per tonne on November 14.
And the copper concentrates TC implied traders purchase, cif Asia Pacific was assessed at $(87.90) per tonne on Friday, compared with $(87.70) per tonne on November 14.
Crooks acknowledged uncertainty about trader profitability: “It’s a question we’ve been asking ourselves internally. It’s not just about the TC, there are lots of other things that go into the numbers.”
Crooks identified macroeconomic conditions and policy decisions as the single largest risk to copper markets next year, rather than physical supply or demand dynamics.
The macro overview matters the most, because the macro then essentially moves the demand numbers. It’s the tweets, policies that come out of different countries as they try and realign in this new world we live in. I think that is what’s really going to move the needle.
Supply disruptions are not historically unusual — similar to pre-2008 patterns of 4-9% disruption rates, Lemsagued noted. But their impact is magnified in the current tight market.
Both mining company representatives emphasized that securing durable relationships with smelter counterparties takes priority over winning tenders at the lowest possible price.
Crooks said his company’s strategy is to “have a diverse client base” and maintain “stable revenue stream for our investment priorities” while valuing “long-term relationships with our clients.” He noted: “One of the things we really do focus on, and we do value, is long-term relationships with our clients… These are the clients that we’ve been working with for many years.”
Lemsagued said: “We value much more long-term relationships than the economic side,” he said. “Performance risk, for me, is much more important than the last dollar on the TC. I’d rather have the right counterparty…Than giving the tender to a party that is unknown, and presenting much more credit, payment and performance risks.”
He cited Managem’s track record: “We’ve been working with people from 30, 40 years, and this is how this industry’s going. Really, this industry is about relationships.”
Expect 2026 to be a year of fragmented premiums, aggressive negotiations, and heightened volatility. From tariff-driven trade flows to AI-driven demand growth, the copper market is entering uncharted territory.
Want deeper insights and expert forecasts? Download the full webinar recording now to hear from Fastmarkets analysts and industry leaders on what’s shaping copper in 2026.
Read the responses to the questions put to the expert panel by the webinar audience
Mehdi Lemsagued: I would say that both [tariffs and supply chain disruptions] are important. The tariffs, of course, June 2026 is an important date in the agenda.
According to a June 30, 2025 proclamation by The White House, “By June 30, 2026, the US Secretary of Commerce shall provide the President with an update on domestic copper markets, including refining capacity and the market for refined copper in the United States, so that the President may determine whether imposing a phased universal import duty on refined copper of 15 percent starting on January 1, 2027, and 30 percent starting on January 1, 2028, is warranted to ensure that copper imports do not continue to threaten to impair the national security.”
Lemsagued: Today, the COMEX ARB is quite wide. We have to see whether this will stay wide, but in June, we will determine if this is an uncertainty.
The supply disruptions, of course, they are important. They represent maybe 6-7% today of the market, which is not unusual, I must confess.
At the same time, if you look at it since 2008, it was at 8% or 9%, so it is not something totally out of history. We have seen these numbers between 4% and 5% and 6%, it’s considered as a normal disruption rate.
So I would not say this is a total big uncertainty, but the problem is that this disruption is happening in a very tense market already.
Scott Crooks: Recycling is obviously very important. I think it’s a key part of the market, but I don’t think it’s a silver bullet for the market. The high prices we’ve seen over the last few years has certainly incentivized any old scrap into the system already, so I do have questions around how much there is that can still come out.
Manufacturing weakness potentially going into next year suggests that perhaps new scrap is not as strong as has been forecasted.
It’s an important part of the market, recycling, but I don’t think it is the single thing that moves the market.
Andrew Cole: I’d say more of a yes than a no, just because that seems to be Trump’s way… his default. But, I think the key thing for the US policy is to keep raw materials in-house, and perhaps a tax on exporting scrap and raw materials would solve the problem.
You don’t really need an import tariff.
Interested in learning more? Download the full webinar recording now to hear crucial context from experts on what’s next for the copper market.