Pan Pacific hikes 2026 Japan copper premium to record $330/t

Pan Pacific Copper (PPC), Japan’s largest supplier of the refined metal, offered last month to sell it to domestic customers at a record premium of $330 per metric ton for 2026, a company source said on Friday.

The rate for physical delivery, which is more than three times the 2025 figure of $88, is paid on top of benchmark LME prices and reflects demand and supply fundamentals. It also covers costs, including those for transport and taxes.

This year’s increase reflects a sharp fall in treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs), or the fees miners pay smelters to turn concentrate into refined metal, which have boosted raw material procurement costs, prompting the company to pass on the burden to customers, the source added.

In addition, concerns that the United States could impose tariffs on copper ingots later this year have spurred speculative flows of metal into North America, tightening supply in Asia.

The source declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

PPC is 47.8% owned by JX Advanced Metals; Mitsui Mining and Smelting owns 32.2% of the company and Marubeni owns 20%.

Like their global peers, Japanese copper smelters are contending with tumbling TC/RCs, shrinking smelting margins due to a shortage of concentrate supply and growing smelting capacity in China.

Last month, Chilean miner Antofagasta and a Chinese copper smelter agreed zero TC/RCs in 2026, two sources with knowledge of the matter said.

In 2025, outages at key mines, such as Indonesia’s Grasberg and Kamoa-Kakula in the Democratic Republic of Congo tightened supply so much that spot processing fees turned negative, leaving smelters paying for what is normally a key source of revenue.

(By Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)