Chinese copper scrap demand keeps falling

Statistics continue to portray China’s slumping demand for imported copper and brass scrap, and analysts say an abundance of primary materials is one root cause.

A late June 2015 column by Andy Home of Reuters cites a presentation made at an industry event for providing insight into why China’s demand for imported copper scrap has plummeted in the previous three years.

Home says imports of primary copper concentrates are “booming” in China, while the country’s copper scrap imports have fallen from 4.9 million metric tons in 2012 to 3.9 million metric tons in 2014.

In the first five months of 2015, Home says, copper scrap imports have totaled just 1.4 million metric tons, down 8 percent compared with the first five months of 2014.

Home cites a presentation made by Carlos Risapatron, director of the International Copper Study Group (ICSG), Lisbon, Portugal, in May 2015 at a Metal Bulletin conference for providing additional details.

The ICSG director said copper product fabricators in China (such as wire rod makers) have taken advantage of widely available primary copper and also have upgraded their manufacturing systems to cater to using these primary materials.

Largely owing to these circumstances, the ICSG estimates China’s red metals fabricators consumed just 550,000 metric tons of imported copper scrap in 2014, down from 1.2 million metric tons in 2012.

This fundamental shift in the fabricator sector, Home writes, “means that China’s overall [imported] copper scrap usage may well have peaked in 2011.”