China ‘Firmly Opposes’ Negative Copper Treatment Charges

China “firmly opposes” zero or negative processing fees for copper smelters and is urging the global industry to confront a “structural contradiction” that has upended the market for the industrial metal.

Treatment and refining charges – the fees earned by smelters for processing ore into metal – have plunged to record lows this year due to a scarcity of raw materials. Rapid growth in China’s smelting capacity, by far the world’s largest, has collided with a series of mine outages around the world.