China copper smelters bracing for shortage of vital scrap metal
Around 30% of China’s refined copper production used scrap metal as a feedstock in 2023.
Japan’s refined copper production in the first half of the 2024/25 financial year is expected to rise 4.2% from a year earlier, Reuters calculations from plans outlined by smelters showed, amid stronger local demand from the chip industry.
The financial first half falls between April and September.
Sumitomo Metal Mining (SMM) expects a 21% surge in first-half output following a two-month maintenance shutdown at its Toyo Smelter & Refinery between September and November last year, a company spokesperson said.
Japan’s biggest copper supplier Pan Pacific Copper (PPC) also expects a slight increase in its first-half supply due to enhanced output capacity at the Hitachi Refinery in eastern Japan, a company spokesperson said.
PPC, jointly owned by JX Metals, Mitsui Mining and Smelting and Marubeni, outsources smelting and refining operations to its parent companies’ plants. It procures raw materials and sells the refined metals.
The company faced supply setbacks in the second half of the last financial year due to boiler trouble at the Saganoseki Smelter and Refinery in southern Japan, the spokesperson said.
In March, the Japan Copper and Brass Association projected a 5.9% increase in domestic demand for copper products in the financial year just started, citing an expected recovery in the automobile and chip industries that will drive demand for plates and strips, copper tubes, and brass bars.
The Japan Electric Wire & Cable Makers’ Association (JCMA) has also forecast 2.0% growth in domestic copper wire shipments in the current financial year, helped by a resurgence in the semiconductor industry and robust export demand.
(By Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Jan Harvey)
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