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Copper processing charges could fall even more next year, states Chile copper commission

An international mined copper shortage will continue into 2025, putting pressure on processing charges that were currently at historic lows this year due to the expansion of smelters, said Chile's staterun copper commission Cochilco in a research study on Thursday.

Miners or intermediaries pay treatment and refining charges ( TC/RCs) to smelters to process copper concentrate into refined metal. Scarcities of copper concentrate this year have currently forced some Chinese smelters to cut output, and experts expect further cuts next year.

Cochilco said it forecasts demand for concentrates to rise 10.5% next year as China and India improve their smelting capacity, and new smelters come online in Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Supply, on the other hand, is projected to tighten 3.4%.

Since 2019, we have actually seen a deficit in the global balance of focuses, which has continued to date and is anticipated to get worse in between 2024 and 2025, Cochilco said in its report.

Consequently, TC/RC would reach a minimum in 2025, it said.

Cochilco said it anticipates a deficit of 1.9 million tons of focuses this year, pushing processing charges to $40 per heap and 4 cents per pound in 2024. Cochilco did not present a. projection for 2025.

In Chile, the world's greatest copper manufacturer, focuses. accounted for 53% of production in 2015. They are anticipated to. increase to 77% by 2040, according to Cochilco.

This year, Cochilco said Chile's concentrate production is. expected to be driven by Teck's Quebrada Blanca, Codelco's. Chuquicamata and BHP's Escondida, offsetting a decrease at Anglo. American's Los Bronces, which closed a concentrator.

(source: Reuters)