Up 80%! Some people “cover” copper not sold

“Do you have a copper machine tool? We can make a home valuation! ” Lao Zhao is a recycling business of scrap metals. Recently, he is circulating recycling advertisements by friends.
After the Spring Festival, copper prices have set a high, recycling manufacturers are looking for scrap copper. Zhao also took the opportunity to make a profit in this wave of market. He said that before the Spring Festival, the price of copper acsr cable was about 40000 yuan per ton, and now it has risen to more than 70000 yuan a ton, or nearly 80 percent.


With the continuous increase of copper price, the raw material cost pressure of downstream metallurgical and processing enterprises is becoming increasingly prominent. In this context, relatively low-cost and environmental protection of waste copper has become “fragrant bun”.
Industry insiders said that the rising copper price and the increase of copper cost are the main reasons for the popularity of recycled copper resources. In the future, the depletion and supply reduction of copper resources abroad will be the trend of the whole world. The market of urban mines and recycled copper resources will have unlimited potential.

01
Downstream telephone burst, waste copper recycling station “cover not sell”

Near a scrap metal recycling station in the suburb of Tanggu, Tianjin, the abandoned copper wires were piled on the roadside, and the sun was golden. Once, this is the “urban waste” that nobody asks for. Nowadays, they are precious renewable resources that enterprises plunder.
In the warehouse built up by color steel plate, Shanghai Securities News reporter saw that the door was a black and abandoned cable, which was randomly collected by several sacks. Walk down the wall, and the white sack behind it is filled with yellow copper cables. The staff said that these are copper wires picked up from the cable at the door. Once, these copper wires were not worth a few money, and now they are worth a lot.

“We have been operating this recycling station for more than ten years, and this year’s good market has hardly seen.” Lao Qin, the head of the recycling station, said that the scrap copper sold only 40000 per ton a ton a ton a year ago, but there was not much downstream goods, and the warehouse was filled with goods that could not be sold. After the Spring Festival, copper and brass cables suddenly became “fragrant bun”, which has exceeded 80000 yuan per ton.
In the past, recyclers were “unreasonable” about copper waste resources, waiting for customers to ask for the recovery price. Now they are starting to drive to factories around the country to find copper scrap valuations.
The copper recovered by Laozhao in Shanghai comes from the abandoned machine tools, cables, copper pots, and parts removed from various old appliances. He took his recycling company for example, in the past, after he recycled and processed it every month, copper sold at most 12000 yuan, and now it can reach more than 100000 yuan per month“ Taking advantage of the high copper prices in recent months, I have shipped all the hoards that I couldn’t sell in the past, making a lot of money net. ”

However, more copper recyclers have a “business experience” and do not rush to sell the accumulated copper to intermediate agents or downstream copper refineries.
“Copper is now priced one day, and the cable copper, which was once slow to sell after the Spring Festival, is almost double.” Old Meng, boss of the scrap metal recycling base from Foshan, said.
Old mengning can backlog some scrap copper, and sell them together when prices are higher. The recyclers around him also sniffed business opportunities. Although agents and middlemen called to order goods every day, they still covered the scrap copper in their hands.
Such “business” also sinks to the basic environmental sanitation workers. According to a big data service provider for waste products in Chengdu, at present, many environmental sanitation workers in Chengdu will consciously look for copper containing cans and electronic components, “the items were sold for a maximum of 1200 yuan a day before, and now they can sell threeorfour yuan or more.”
Although the price of scrap copper has risen greatly, the sales profit of different recycling stations is quite different. Shanghai Securities News reporter understands that compared with the previous year, the most of them have reached several times or even ten times, while the few are only 30%. According to zz91 regeneration network data, as of the 12th, the average price of main copper scrap in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai was about 65000 yuan / ton, up 32% from the beginning of the year.
In response, Wu Xinyong, an analyst in the copper industry of Shanghai Nonferrous network, said the main factors determining the profit of scrap copper recovery are the recovery cost when recycling and the price difference before the delivery price at the time of sale. If the scrap copper is recovered at the low point of copper price before the year ago and sold at the current copper price high, the intermediate profit will be considerable.

02
“Price difference between refined waste” and the economy of waste copper are highlighted

As for the phenomenon of copper scrap is tight since this year, Wang siran, director of Ping An Futures Research Institute, told Shanghai Securities News that in practice, many products of copper processing enterprises can take refined copper as raw materials and scrap copper as raw materials. There is a price difference between scrap copper and refined copper, and the price of scrap copper is not as fast as that of refined copper.
Wei Lai, director of all color research of Tianfeng futures research, told Shanghai Securities News that since this year, downstream enterprises have been in stable demand for copper, especially in emerging fields such as new energy vehicles, electronics, home appliances and other industries, with higher demand for copper. With the continuous increase of international copper price, the economy of waste copper has been highlighted. Because of the excessive cost of using refined copper, processing and smelting enterprises tend to increase the consumption of waste copper.
“The supply of copper concentrate abroad is relatively tight this year, and there are epidemic and strike in the main production areas of copper concentrate such as Chile.” Wei Lai said.
In March, copper production in Chile has fallen for 10 consecutive months, according to data. According to the National Bureau of statistics, Chile’s copper production in the first quarter of 2021 was 1.4 million tons. The year-on-year decrease was 2.2%.
The decline in copper production has shifted some demand to scrap copper, which also promotes domestic imports of scrap copper. My non-ferrous network data show that, due to steady growth of downstream demand, the import of recycled copper has increased significantly since this year. In the first quarter of 2021, the import of recycled copper was 363700 tons, an increase of 73.39% year-on-year.
“The use of scrap copper is no longer new. The industry has mature technology to convert waste copper into refined copper. From the perspective of environmental protection and carbon neutralization, it is also in line with the trend to increase the use of waste copper. ” Wei Lai said.