In April this year, the cost of copper scrap in the North American region increased slightly from the lowest level. The cost of Chinese copper scrap decreased slightly during this period. At the same time, there are factors that promise to her recovery. Exchange the price of copper remains at the same level, 3 USD / lb. In this position gradually strengthened copper. Influencing factors in this case are questions regarding the strength of supply. Now there is the price of copper in the region of 2,76 USD / pound. This figure holds a 20th of March. Since January, copper gained 11.74% after a long time seen minimal results.
Copper tube and wire cost slightly increased. Growth amounted to 0,03 USD / pound. Insulated wire cost of copper after the restoration of 85% increased by 0,02 USD / pound during the day. Do not change the price of scrap motor, transformer copper scrap, scrap starters and closed blocks. Several increased price of scrap copper radiators — an increase of 0.01 USDot previous figure.
As experts assume, improvement in the copper market due to the downgraded forecasts for metal production in 2015 by the miners. For example, the company «BHP Billiton» has taken into account the February failure of equipment at Olympic Dam by cutting its forecast. A company «Freeport-McMoRan» altogether in late March to temporarily frozen the release of copper. In Chile, the miners were forced to suspend production of copper due to flooding. Besides, Cochilcoumenshila projected production volumes from 6 to 5.94 million. Tons in 2015. The reason was the difficult weather conditions, due to the drought in the region which are replaced by the floods. February results for the smelting of copper in Chile reached the level of 447.810 tons. This figure is lower than in 2014 by 1.1%.
According to the Statistics Agency INEna decrease in production volumes affected the low level of production of concentrates. In turn, reduce the amount of processed raw materials were observed as a result of repair work on the mining company. However, the representative did not specify what exactly the company has in mind. Maybe it was about Anglo American and Glencore joint asset. It Collahuasi reduced loading capacity at the processing plant.