A view shows an area of Codelco El Teniente copper mine, the world's largest underground copper mine, near Rancagua, Chile, on Jul 30, 2024. SHANGHAI: Using more aluminium and recycled copper would help China cope with scarce copper resources, an industry group said on Wednesday , at a time when tight copper concentrate supplies are eroding profits at Chinese smelters.
Global miners and smelters in the world's largest copper producer and consumer usually meet in Shanghai every November for the Asia Copper Week gathering to negotiate their copper concentrate contracts and settle treatment and refining charges for the following year. China's recycled copper volume will rise from 2.5 million metric tons in 2024 to 2.7 million tons in 2025 and 3.5 million tons by 2030, Ge forecast, encouraging Chinese companies to go to politically stable areas abroad to secure more recycled copper resources.
Ge called for mergers and the reorganisation of China's copper refining capacity to increase industrial consolidation so as to enhance negotiating power to buy concentrate.Using aluminium to replace copper already presents economic advantages, said Ge, with copper prices more than 3.5 times those of aluminium.