Japan, Spain, and South Korea went on to issue a rare joint statement stating deep concerns over the tumbling copper treatment and refining charges – copper TC/RCs and hence warning that both smelters and miners cannot develop sustainably as per the present conditions.
Copper smelters across the world are grappling with the falling processing fees and also shrinking margins alongside the tight concentrate supply and growing smelting capacity in China. In June 2025, there were some Chinese smelters who agreed to process the copper for Antofagasta, the Chilean miner, at no charge.
The three countries’ industry ministries said that they were deeply concerned that this deterioration in TC/RCs is indeed prompting a re-evaluation when it comes to copper smelting operations across the world, with many companies already indicating their intentions to either scale down or withdraw from the copper concentrate smelting.
TC/RCs, which are a key source of revenue for smelters, happen to be the fees paid by miners when they sell concentrate, or semi-processed ore, so as to be refined into metal. However, in some spot deals in 2025, copper TC/RCs have turned negative, thereby forcing smelters to pay miners to offer smelting services.
The ministries said the present market environment goes on to prevent copper smelting from developing sustainably alongside mining across the resource-producing countries and has warned that the growing reliance on specific countries is indeed undesirable for both resource-producing and smelting countries.
They further said that they do hope TC/RCs are going to return to sustainable levels for copper concentrate trading and that they shall continue engaging with the relevant countries and stakeholders so as to go ahead and establish a resilient as well as sustainable copper supply chain.
The deputy director of the mineral resources department with the industry ministry of Japan, Naoki Kobayashi, said that the three countries, all of which are the importers of copper concentrate with domestic smelting operations, looked to raise the issue at the metals industry gathering LME Week in London.
The major copper smelters from Japan, JX Advanced Metals and Mitsubishi Materials, have already said that they plan to scale back the copper concentrate processing as falling processing fees are eroding the margins.