China’s top copper smelters have set their floor treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) for the third quarter of 2020 at $53/mt and 5.3 cents/lb, SMM learned.

Chilean copper miner Antofagasta has agreed to supply Chinese smelters Tongling Nonferrous and Jiangxi Copper with copper concentrates in the first half of 2021 at treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) of $60.8/mt and 6.08 cents/lb, SMM learned.

The long-anticipated new standards for high-grade copper scrap and aluminium scrap metal—due to come into force on July 1–has yet to be implemented at China’s customs, as the procedure for importing material under these standards has not been finalised, SMM learned from several traders, fabricators and smelters.

A draft plan for air quality control in the top steelmaking hub of Tangshan in July has been released, which is estimated to affect production of molten iron 160,000 mt per day, according to SMM calculations.

An alumina refinery in north-central China’s Shanxi province shut down a production line with an annualised capacity of 1 million mt following an equipment accident, sources told SMM on June 28.

Social inventories of lead ingots in China rose sharply this week, as buyers turned to secondary lead smelters on wider discounts while demand remained sluggish after some lead-acid battery producers were shut for up to three days for the Dragon Boat Festival.

Operating rates across lead-acid battery producers in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hubei and Hebei provinces averaged 63.69% in the week ended July 3, up 0.27 percentage point from the previous week, showed an SMM survey.

Social inventories of silicon metal in China were barely changed this week, with SMM data showing that stocks across Huangpu port, Kunming city and Tianjin port stood at 46,000 mt as of Friday July 3, flat from the level seen on June 24, the last trading day before the Dragon Boat Festival.

Nickel ore inventories across all Chinese ports rose this week, increasing 85,000 wmt from last Wednesday June 24 to 8.08 million wmt as of Friday July 3, showed SMM data. This marked the third weekly increase in the past four weeks.

Operating rates across licensed smelters of secondary lead in Jiangsu, Anhui, Henan and Guizhou averaged 53.4% in the week ended July 3, up 3 percentage points from the previous week, showed an SMM survey.