Japan Copper Smelters Try to Keep Margin at Talk with Miners

Japanese copper smelters keep negotiating with offshore miners to settle copper ore price for July 2008 and June 2009 shipment. They focus on US$ 45 per tonne of treatment charge and 4.5 US cents per pound of refining charge at the mid-year talk, which is same level as settlement at end of 2007. The miners try to reduce the charge while the smelters are suffered from 14% lower charge compared with a year earlier level. The smelters try to maximize the charge. Japanese smelters import annual 4.6 million tonnes of copper concentrate, 20% of which the mid-year negotiation covers. Pan Pacific Copper, which is joint venture of Nippon Mining & Metals, Sumitomo Metal Mining and Mitsubishi Materials start 4th round talk with Escondida of Chine, which represents around 50% of Japanese concentrate import of Japan, in Japan by end of July. The focused US$ 45 per tonne of treatment charge and 4.5 US cents per pound of refining charge represents 11-12 US cents per pound. The charge is around 3% of 350 US cents per pound of ingot price. The smelters try to secure the minimum margin when they are already suffered from higher ore cost.