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SPOTLIGHT ON COPPER

39recyclinginternational.com | March/April | 2020

ket. The analysis begins a decade ago
with a detailed review of the long-
term trends of international trade
flows for the period 2009-2018 and
sets out the chronology of restrictions
since 2017 (see boxes). More than a
dozen conclusions are drawn and
some are listed below.

CHINA IS CRUCIAL
The analysis underlines how Chinese
waste import restrictions have impact-
ed most on the exports of copper and
alloy scrap from the United States,
which fell from around 50 000 tonnes
per month in 2016 and 2017 to almost
marginal levels in 2018 and remained
around 10 000 tonnes per year in
2019. The US reallocated its exports
to Malaysia, India, Japan and others,
so that its export volumes in 2019
remained around 70-80 000 tonnes
per month in gross weight, slightly
below recent years. EU exports of
copper and copper alloy scrap, mean-
while, fell faster than US exports, in
part because most were copper alloys,
directly banned as ‘Category 6’ in
2019. With close to 90% of EU exports
of recycled raw materials going to
China, the region has been slower to
react to the import ban.
The 2019 ban and direct restrictions
through taxes on imports of copper
and alloy scrap from the US in the sec-
ond part of 2018 started a global real-
location of exports of low grade cop-
per scrap. This material, broadly clas-
sified by ICSG statistics as ‘copper
scrap alloys’, was being diverted to
Malaysia, Japan Cambodia, Thailand
and other locations including Pakistan
and the Middle East. Here, it is
believed, the material is being melted
and re-exported to China as copper
alloy ingots, blister copper or other
categories known as ‘black copper’
that contains 98% copper or more,
close to the limit of impurities pro-
posed by the Chinese authorities.

‘MASSIVE IMPACT’
The ICSG report says that Chinese
bans and import taxes on copper con-
taining scrap imports were among the
most important developments affect-

ing the copper market in 2018 and
2019. They contributed to cut global
imports of recycled copper raw mate-
rials in gross weight by about 477 000
tonnes in 2018, deepening the con-
traction in global imports by over 1.3
million tonnes in 2019. The accumulat-
ed impact was a contraction in
imports of recycled copper raw mate-
rials of around 1.8 million tonnes over
the two years. The impact on Chinese
imports of ‘copper scrap’ is described
as massive, with a fall in imports of
over 1.1 million tonnes in 2018 and a
new contraction of 2.4 million tonnes
in 2019. This meant an accumulated
contraction in Chinese scrap imports
of over 3.5 million tonnes in in 2018-
19 years compared to 2017. These
were mainly copper alloys and copper
waste, which are currently being real-
located to third countries or are
remaining in the exporting countries
looking for treatment and domestic
processing.
But there is a more upbeat end, with
China’s new proposed definition of
higher quality scrap as being ‘renew-
able raw materials’ offering the pros-
pects of the traditional Chinese mar-
ket being restored after the change is
implemented this summer.

CONCLUSIONS INCLUDE:
• The downtrend of the global trade
of recycled copper raw materials seen
since 2012 accelerated in 2018 due to
increasing import controls, before
imports to China collapsed in 2019.
• Oversupplied scrap markets are
affecting the sales of refined copper
outside China as fabricators replace
refined copper with high-grade cop-
per scrap when available at large price
discounts.
• Part of the low copper content scrap
and some high grade scrap volumes
are being exported from North
America and North East Asian coun-
tries to new dismantling and melting
destinations in South Asia.
• The surplus created by the collapse
of most of the US exports to China
will take some time to be processed
by plants using recycled copper in the
US or elsewhere.

• EU scrap exports to developing
economies are not growing as fast as
US scrap exports, mainly due to regu-
lations that limit the trade of waste
out of Europe.
• The oversupply of high-grade cop-
per scrap is making it more difficult
for copper refineries to sell their cath-
odes to fabricators in some markets.
Pressure to increase import taxes or
control or ban the import of scrap and
to protect copper refineries is emerg-
ing in India and other countries.
• The reallocation of copper scrap,
copper alloy scrap and low-grade cop-
per waste is driving new investments,
mainly from Chinese companies
abroad, to produce copper alloy
ingots and low-grade blister copper.
• The January 2020 decision of
Chinese authorities to classify
‘Category 6’ scrap as a ‘renewable
raw material’ is due to be implement-
ed in July. As a result, global trade of
recycled copper raw materials to
China could start to recover in the
second half of the year.
ICSG website: www.icsg.org

Fotobijschrift

NEW RULES
In 2017, China’s Customs authorities intensified
efforts to control solid waste imports after years of
inspections of materials with different copper con-
tent. They looked at restricting imports of waste in
July 2017 and, from January 2019, banned mixed
metal scrap imports to promote the conversion of
local waste and scrap into recycled materials. In
2017, the government also targeted recovered
plastic scrap imports: in January 2018, it banned
almost all such imports and formally announced its
intention to ban the import of all waste raw materi-
als by 2020, under a revision of the country’s solid
waste management law. A total ban on low-grade
copper scrap, including most copper alloys and
raw materials for dismantling, known as ‘Category
7’, was fully implemented in January 2019. In July
last year, high-grade copper scrap ‘Category 6’ was
switched to restricted import status, which requires
licences. Early this year, China announced that cop-
per scrap with over 94% copper content had been
re-classified as ‘renewable raw material’ within five
categories and import permissions would be
acceptable in the second half of the year.

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