Latest news with #miners
Reuters
11 hours ago
- Business
- Reuters
Copper smelters are facing both market and pricing crises
LONDON, June 20 (Reuters) - Copper smelters are now so desperate to find raw material they are paying miners for converting their concentrates into refined metal. So-called treatment and refining charges (TCRC) should be a core revenue stream for copper smelters but spot charges have been negative since the start of the year and the mid-year negotiations have also kicked off with a negative number. Low treatment charges feed copper's perennial bull narrative of too little mine supply but the current implosion in processing fees is as much about too much demand from too many new smelters. The imbalance looks unsustainable, particularly if smelters accept a negative charge for the mid-year talks, which set the price for much higher volumes than the spot market. But equally unsustainable is the copper industry's preference for pricing concentrates on an annual or semi-annual basis. The good news for smelters is that spot treatment charges appear to have stopped falling. The bad news is that they have done no more than stabilise at $-45 per ton (TC) and -4.5 cents per lb (RC) level, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. Smelters which chose to lock in tonnages over the full year are partly insulated but this year's benchmark terms of $21.5 per ton were also the lowest in at least 20 years. The mid-year negotiations look likely to generate a still lower outcome, although smelters will understandably balk at locking in a negative TCRC for contracts that could run into 2026. Smelters have a couple of financial life-lines in the form of valuable by-products such as gold and silver. They also produce sulphuric acid, which has been rising sharply in price in China thanks to demand from the phosphate fertilizer industry. But a copper smelter's main source of income should really be copper, which is clearly not the case right now. It's not as if mines haven't been increasing production. Global output rose by 2.1% in 2023, 2.8% in 2024 and by another 1.2% in the first quarter of this year, according to the International Copper Study Group. China's imports of copper concentrates have been running strong, hitting a new annual high of 28.2 million tons bulk weight last year and up 7.5% year-on-year in the first four months of 2025. It's just that too much Chinese smelting capacity has been brought on line too quickly with newcomers chasing down available tonnage. Scrap is an alternative feed for some but this is an increasingly competitive market and Chinese imports of copper recyclable material are no more than flat so far this year relative to 2024. The rapid scale-up of Chinese processing capacity is clear to see in the country's production of refined metal. May output jumped by almost 14% year-on-year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Local data provider Shanghai Metal Market estimates production so far this year has grown by 11% over 2024 levels. A couple of Western smelters have already closed under the margin squeeze. Glencore (GLEN.L), opens new tab placed its Pasar smelter in the Philippines on care and maintenance in February. Sinomine did the same with its Tsumeb plant in Namibia earlier this month. But Chinese operators are doubling down in what appears to be a last-man-standing strategy. The world's mines are not going to be able to lift collective output by the same margin as China has increased smelting capacity. And the stresses in the raw materials supply chain are only going to get worse as new smelters fire up in Indonesia, ending the country's role as a key concentrates supplier to Asian smelters. Something will have to give, particularly since Chinese copper demand is expected to cool due to a scaling-back of subsidies for the over-heated solar panel sector. But with Chinese smelters not blinking, it could take some time before the current supply-demand imbalance is corrected through more capacity closures. That means more stress also on the industry's price discovery process, which is still rooted in annual deals. There has been some movement towards quarterly pricing and even spot pricing but largely in China. This, as smelters are finding out, is a big problem if the annual price is a negative number. A negative mid-year deal sets an ominous precedent. Markets such as iron ore have moved away from annual benchmarks which couldn't capture spot price volatility or sudden shifts in supply dynamics. Even lithium, widely perceived as too bespoke a commodity for standardised futures trading, can now be hedged on a liquid CME contract. It may be time for copper smelters to have a fundamental rethink about how they price their role in the processing chain. Because right now they're quite literally giving money away to the miners. The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters
The National
a day ago
- Business
- The National
Best photos of June 19: An airstrike in Israel to growing proteas in South Africa
Bitcoin is the most popular virtual currency in the world. It was created in 2009 as a new way of paying for things that would not be subject to central banks that are capable of devaluing currency. A Bitcoin itself is essentially a line of computer code. It's signed digitally when it goes from one owner to another. There are sustainability concerns around the cryptocurrency, which stem from the process of "mining" that is central to its existence. The "miners" use computers to make complex calculations that verify transactions in Bitcoin. This uses a tremendous amount of energy via computers and server farms all over the world, which has given rise to concerns about the amount of fossil fuel-dependent electricity used to power the computers.
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Tanking China Coking Coal Market Gets Respite After Output Halts
Chinese coking coal futures have staged a rare recovery this month, with the latest gains driven by temporary halts to production in the mining hub of Shanxi as regulators conduct environmental assessments. Inspections in the Linfen area of the province have intensified, and mines delivering about 10.5 million tons a year were verbally notified on Monday to suspend operations, according to industry publication SXCoal. Some miners have reported that the stoppages are provisionally scheduled to last 10 days.
Malay Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Malay Mail
El Dorado's residents trade gold for groceries as mining remains lifeline
EL DORADO, June 18 — In the Venezuelan mining community of El Dorado, the majority of residents carry around gold instead of cards or cash to pay for groceries. They live in a town named after the mythical City of Gold and untold riches — but most of them are poor. Merchants use scales to carefully weigh the flecks people guard in plastic pill bottles or wrapped in pieces of paper, and market goods are priced in weight of gold. For 0.02 grams, you can get a small packet of maize meal, for one gram a pre-packaged bag of groceries that includes flour, pasta, oil, margarine, ketchup and milk powder. A gram of gold can purchase between $85 and $100 worth of goods, but takes hours of back-breaking work to amass. If you're in luck. 'Gold is a blessing given to us so we can buy what we want, but you have to work hard,' 48-year-old Jose Tobias Tranquini told AFP in the town of 5,000 residents mostly employed in mining—legal and illegal. 'One day at the mine you might find nothing; there are lucky people who have gotten up to a kilo (2.2 pounds), but... I haven't had that kind of blessing. I've only gotten a little bit,' said Tranquini. El Dorado's residents have limited access to banking services. They could sell their gold at one of the dozens of dealers that dot the streets, but most prefer not to. Gold—unlike the battered Venezuelan currency that has lost 50 percent of its value this year—does not depreciate. A man pays at a store with grams of gold, which is the main means of payment in the mining town of El Dorado. — AFP pic No gold, no life El Dorado arose as a military fort as Britain and Venezuela squared off in 1895 over the mineral- and oil-rich region of Essequibo now at the center of an increasingly heated territorial dispute with Guyana, which has administered it for decades. The oldest inhabitants of the town remember that when it rained, particles of gold emerged from the town's clay streets. Nowadays, the streets are tarred, though potholed, and the population rely for transport mainly on motorcycles that zoom noisily to and fro. Hilda Carrero, a 73-year-old merchant, arrived in Eldorado 50 years go in the midst of a gold rush. The town, she recalls, was just 'jungle and snakes... It was ugly.' Carrero sells cans of water for 0.03 grams of gold apiece — about US$1.50 — but business, like mining hauls, is erratic. Some days she sells nothing. 'If I don't have gold I have no life,' Carrero sighed. It can be hard to make a living in a place where abundant reserves of gold, diamonds, iron, bauxite, quartz and coltan have attracted organized crime and guerrilla groups that mine illegally, and sow violence. Extortion of small business owners is rife, and 217 people were killed in the four years to 2020 in clashes between rival criminal gangs. Environmentalists also denounce an 'ecocide' in the heavily-exploited area, and mine collapses have claimed dozens of lives. Hazardous work Around El Dorado, there are numerous camps processing the gold-laden sand that miners dig up daily. In tall sheds with zinc roofs, mountains of sand are milled in machines that work with modified car engines, then washed in water and toxic mercury to separate the gold from other metals. Tiny particles almost imperceptible to the naked eye are trapped in a green mat which is shaken out to collect them. The granules are finally heated with a blowtorch to remove impurities before the gold can be traded or sold. It is hard work, and hazardous. 'The danger of this is the smoke' produced by the mercury burning off, a mill owner explained while smoking a cigarette. A family of five working at a mine visited by AFP spent four hours that day processing a ton of sand. For their efforts: one gram of gold. 'We'll use it to buy food and whatever is needed at the mill,' a worker who asked not to be named told AFP as he cupped a tiny grain of gold in coarse hands. It was a good day. — AFP
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Highlights From The 2025 Bitcoin Conference
Bitcoin Conference 2025 Last month, I attended all three days of the Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas. I've only attended smaller conferences before, like BTC++, BitBlockBoom, and my own academic conferences on Bitcoin, so this was on my bucket list. This is much bigger, with 20,000+ attendees, many concurrent sessions, and hundreds of sponsors and booths. Here are some of my major reflections. First, bitcoin is getting noticed. The scale of the crowds was impressive. Broadly speaking, there are three primary communities: Miners, developers, and capitalists. They had separate sessions for each of them. The general stage was aimed at the general public, mostly for people who were new to bitcoin or for speeches that pertained to all Bitcoiners. There were plenty of newcoiners at the conference. Some flew in from all over the world, and many knew little about bitcoin. And finally, there were a bunch who don't go to any of the smaller, more specialized conferences, like Ed, who operates excavators and has followed bitcoin for years, now planning on starting a small mining operation. The best speech was by Ross Ulbricht. He talked about his time in jail for the last decade, and how he essentially lived in a time capsule. In his time, bitcoin was priced at less than a dollar, and there were no altcoins, major mining operations, or AI. His story is remarkable: he got into jail because of bitcoin, but then it was bitcoin that let him out. It was the unity of the entire community that rallied around his freedom that is the most remarkable proof that Bitcoin is a movement, more than just a technology. Saylor also hit a home run, focusing this time more on the individual than his usual corporate audience. He had some nice lessons on the need to focus and, ultimately, the humility that brings people to bitcoin. Many people came to bitcoin before Saylor, but they wasted their time and treasure on other projects, either within the cryptocurrency space or outside of it. All would have been better served had they recognized the high value of Satoshi's innovation and simply taken the humble path of buying and holding. It's a hard lesson to swallow in our age of innovation, where Silicon Valley and now New York and Miami constantly strive for the next big thing. Sometimes the next big thing is right under your nose, and we tend to overestimate incremental change and underestimate radical tectonic shifts. The other novelty in the conference program was the rise of the bitcoin treasury companies. They occupied a new space in the program, and there was a large community around them, both the ones around MicroStrategy (MSTR), but also the newer kids on the block like Metaplanet, Semler Scientific, and Nakamoto. My last observation is that bitcoin education still has a way to go. The educators had no time in the program. But even beyond that, there is a vast distance between the developer sessions and the rest of the conference. They really were separate conferences within a larger conference. Why is this a problem? For me, I acquired conviction only by looking under the hood of how bitcoin works. So maybe that will be an opportunity for next year.
