Copper scrap gaining favor in 2023

Global data gathered by the Lisbon-based International Copper Study Group (ICSG) indicate scrap-fed secondary copper production in the first half of this year increased by 12 percent compared with the first half of 2022.

Although an increase in red metal scrap-based capacity appears to be underway in the United States, the global increase this year has been “mainly due to a rise in China,” the ICSG says.

The organization adds, “A series of maintenance or operational issues led to declines in production in a number of major producing countries, such as the United States (-6.5 percent), India (-5.8 percent), Indonesia (-6 percent), Finland (-28 percent) and Sweden (-11 percent),” in a comment that refers to primary and secondary production.

Using U.S. red metal scrap exports in the first four months of this year as a gauge, China has remained the heavyweight destination for most grades.

According to U.S. Census Bureau data summarized by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), Chinese ports (including Hong Kong) accepted more than 98,000 metric tons of copper-bearing scrap shipped from the U.S. in the first four months of this year.

While Malaysia and Thailand have grown as destinations for nonferrous—and especially aluminum—scrap shipped from the U.S., neither has approached China’s scale as a red metals buyer in 2023, according to the USGS. Malaysia has brought in barely more than one-fifth the amount of copper scrap as China, at roughly 21,000 metric tons, and Thailand less than that, at nearly 18,800 metric tons.

The ICSG indicates copper inventories in exchange warehouses have been declining this year, with data in hand for the first seven months of the year. “As of the end of July 2023, copper stocks held at the major metal exchanges (London Metal Exchange, or LME; the U.S.-based Comex; and the Shanghai Futures Exchange, or SHFE) totaled 174,891 metric tons,” the organization writes.

That end of July figure, according to the ICSG, represents a decline of 14,614 metric tons, or 7.7 percent, from inventory held at the end of last year.

So far this year, inventories are down by 11.5 percent at SHFE warehouses and by 16 percent at LME warehouses but are up by 24 percent at Comex facilities.