Base metals

Aurubis has secured long-term access to 75,000 tonnes per year of copper-gold concentrate from Troilus Gold’s Quebec project starting as early as 2028, as the German smelter responds to what it describes as an “increasingly constrained” market for clean copper concentrate.

Tristan Pascall, chief executive officer of Vancouver-based First Quantum Minerals, gave an exclusive interview with Fastmarkets on Friday August 29, in which he explains why Africa is the best place to build large copper mines, and gave his opinion of the outlook for the nickel, gold and copper sectors.

The US is confronting a copper supply shortfall, but one company believes that it already holds the key to unlocking hundreds of thousands of tonnes of refined copper – right here, right now.

When the US opted not to impose Section 232 tariffs on copper cathode imports last month, the market breathed a sigh of relief.

US export controls on recycled copper would have unintended consequences that could weaken the country’s domestic recycling and manufacturing ecosystems, the president of the Recycled Materials Association (ReMA) said.

The United States’ copper recycling industry is ramping up pressure on policymakers to impose some form of export controls on high-purity copper scrap, arguing that current trade dynamics – particularly with China – are distorting prices, weakening domestic capacity and undermining national security goals.