Global copper smelters found to be unusually inactive in 2024

More than 16% of global copper smelter capacity was inactive for the first half of the year, above the last three-year average.

Copper smelter inactivity was 13%, 12.9% and 11.7% for 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively, according to Earth-i.

The geospatial intelligence company's SAVANT platform has indicators of smelter activity around the globe.

It reported inactivity dipping in June 2024 from a high of 20.8% to 19.9%. Earth-i says it will take time to establish whether this indicates a return to more usual levels of smelter activity.

The company also reports a recent high in Chinese smelting inactivity, reducing from 26% in May to 15% in June as high-capacity smelters came back online.

Two of three smelters in the country that were clsoed for maintenance have restarted. Both Xingguang Copper and Shandong Fanguan have nameplate capacities of 400,000t per year.

Elsewhere, maintenance outages last month at Chinese-owned, Lualaba smelter in the DRC and at Sudbury Copper Cliff in Canada appear to have been completed and production resumed.

In Europe, the major Hamburg smelter in Germany, owned by Aurubis, closed for a scheduled break between early May to early July.