Chilean miner Antofagasta has agreed to sell term copper concentrate supplies to some Chinese smelters at spot-indexed prices with a guaranteed floor, industry information provider SMM reported on Wednesday.
The reported deal would mark a break with a decades-old practice under which miners sell term supplies at fixed treatment and refining charges (TC/RC) that serve as a global benchmark.
Antofagasta said its negotiations were confidential and it did not discuss them with third parties.
Miners typically pay TC/RCs to smelters to process copper concentrate into refined metal, but charges on the spot market have been deeply negative in recent months due to a shortage of ore.
That has left smelters paying to process material and increased pressure on the benchmark, which was set at zero for 2026 and has already been abandoned by some miners.
Chinese smelters had resisted Antofagasta’s proposal to switch to spot-indexed pricing in mid-year negotiations over term supply, arguing it would reduce pricing certainty.
However, after Antofagasta insisted on the change, the two sides reached an “innovative compromise” under which TC/RCs would be linked to an index while also being subject to a guaranteed floor, SMM said.
The arrangement means Antofagasta cannot sell term concentrate to smelters at TC/RCs below a specified level.
Spot TCs were around minus $126.80 a metric ton at the end of last week, according to Argus.
The SMM report did not say at what level the floor would be set.
(By Tom Daly, Lewis Jackson and Amy Lv; Editing by Mark Potter)
