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Key takeaways:
The concern comes as tightness is already visible at the upstream end of the copper supply chain. Spot copper concentrate availability has remained limited, pushing treatment and refining charges, or TC/RCs — the fees paid to smelters for processing mined concentrate into refined copper — deeper into negative territory.
The decline has squeezed smelters’ traditional processing income, though the recent elevated sulfuric acid and other by-product revenues have so far helped keep smelter margins afloat and allowed plants to continue taking concentrate.
Fastmarkets calculated the weekly copper concentrates TC index, cif Asia Pacific — the midpoint between smelter and trader buying levels — at $(105.10) per tonne on Friday April 17, down by $2.40 per tonne from $(102.70) per tonne a week prior.
The copper concentrates TC implied smelters purchase, cif Asia Pacific was assessed at (80.98) per tonne on Friday, down by $2.93 per tonne from $(78.05) per tonne a week prior, falling more sharply than the trader-side index. The figure marked the first sub-$(80) per tonne print on record.
The copper concentrates TC implied traders purchase, cif Asia Pacific was assessed at $(129.22) per tonne on Friday, down by $1.87 per tonne from $(127.35) per tonne a week prior.
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Panelists were broadly constructive on copper demand, pointing to a structural growth story supported by electrification, artificial intelligence and power-grid expansion.
“In the next 25 years, we will consume more copper than we ever consumed in humanity, and that’s very difficult to reverse,” Bold Baatar, chief commercial officer of Rio Tinto, said.
The demand drivers are broad. AI data centers require copper-intensive electrical systems. Aging power grids need major upgrades to accommodate electrification. Electric vehicles, renewable energy, transmission infrastructure and manufacturing policy are all adding to copper demand.
Ivan Petex, global head of base metals at Gunvor, noted that data centers alone could add 2 million to 3 million tonnes of copper demand over the next decade, while grid upgrades could generate a further 7 million to 8 million tonnes of additional demand.
Policy and arbitrage are increasingly driving copper flows, highlighting the metal’s shift toward a more strategic role, Fastmarkets understood from the panel
After the US launched a Section 232 investigation into copper imports in 2025, expectations of potential tariffs drove COMEX copper to a premium over London Metal Exchange prices, pulling physical metal into the US through arbitrage.
The move has altered how the market reads supply. Market participants are increasingly focused on where copper is held and how policy is shaping its movement, rather than headline inventory levels.
Tariff expectations, strategic stockpiling and domestic processing ambitions can alter trade flows before end-user demand changes. In that sense, copper is becoming less like a freely moving industrial commodity and more like a strategic input whose movement is shaped by national priorities.
Permitting is emerging as one of the main constraints on new copper supply, with large projects facing environmental reviews, legal challenges and community opposition, panelists said.
“Permitting is the biggest bottleneck,” Mark Kristoff, chief executive officer of Traxys Group, said. “Time is money, and if you can’t get a permit in a timely fashion, you’re not going to allocate capital.”
The Resolution Copper project in Arizona shows how long that process can take. The project, a joint venture between Rio Tinto and BHP, is one of the most significant undeveloped copper resources in the US.
US legislation enabling a land exchange for the project was passed in 2014, but development was slowed by environmental reviews, legal challenges and disputes over Native American religious rights. The land exchange was only completed on March 16, 2026, according to the companies.
Ore quality is also becoming a structural constraint on new copper supply, raising both the cost and complexity of project development.
Lower grades mean miners must process significantly larger volumes of material to produce the same amount of metal, increasing requirements for energy, water and waste management.
That, in turn, is pushing up capital intensity even for brownfield expansions, where companies are extending existing operations rather than developing entirely new mines.
The trend is also reshaping where supply can be added. Higher-grade deposits can be developed with smaller processing facilities and shorter timelines, while lower-grade regions require larger infrastructure and higher upfront investment.
Baatar pointed to the contrast between high-grade deposits in the Democratic Republic of Congo and lower-grade operations in Chile, noting that projects in higher-grade regions can be brought online more quickly with materially lower capital requirements.
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