Column: Bleak times for copper smelters as conversion fees slump
The benchmark smelter treatment charges for next year have been set by Chilean copper miner Antofagasta and China's Jiangxi Copper.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Monday oversaw the launch of copper cathode production at Freeport Indonesia’s smelter in East Java province.
The new $3.7 billion smelter has annual input capacity of 1.7 million metric tons of copper concentrate, which could produce around 900,000 tons of copper cathode, 50 tons of gold and 210 tons of silver a year, Widodo said.
(By Bernadette Christina and Ananda Teresia; Editing by Martin Petty)
Comments
R. Valentine
Precious Metals are a vital part of modern civilization . An old observation by several metals experts goes as follows , ” Silver is the new Gold , Copper is the new Silver , and Gold will always be societies base currency .”
Only time will tell , so far , so true .