The bottleneck in copper this quarter is not a pit wall or a permit. It is a tanker of sulphuric acid arriving late in Katanga, and the price of that arriving late is now printed: over $1,300 a tonne delivered into Kolwezi, net of taxes.
| Last | Change | |
|---|---|---|
| Copper (COMEX) | 14,786 USD/t (6.707 USD/lb) | +3.0% |
| Sulphur (China) | 1,389 USD/t (9,369 CNY/t) | reference print, 7 Aug |
| Wheat (CBOT) | 231 USD/t (629 USc/bu) | -3.4% |
| Brent | 83.35 USD/bbl | +1.0% |
| Baltic Dry | 3,057 | flat |
The acid file
Six months of disrupted sulphuric acid supply across the DRC Copperbelt have moved Kolwezi spot above $1,300 per tonne delivered, with the Kamoa-Kakula smelter running as the region's swing source of domestic acid. Put that against the sulphur feedstock print of 1,389 USD/t in China on 7 August and the arithmetic of leaching a tonne of oxide ore in Lualaba stops being an accounting detail. A new GEM Mining Consulting study sizes the wider exposure: roughly 3.6 million tonnes a year of primary copper, about 15% of global supply, passes through acid-dependent processing, and a 90-day acid disruption puts around 111,000 tonnes of copper output at risk. Copper on COMEX settled the week at 6.707 USD/lb, up 3.0% on the prior print.
Kinshasa closes the concentrate door
The Congolese government has banned exports of copper and cobalt concentrates with immediate effect, an official order that leaves room for one-year waivers under unspecified "strategic circumstances". The stated aim is local value addition. The practical effect is that more material must be smelted or refined inside the country, in the same month that the acid to do it costs $1,300 a tonne on the spot market and the government has placed certain cobalt hydroxide exports under dual national and international expertise following the uranium contamination alert. Trucks currently loaded for Durban and Dar es Salaam will need paperwork nobody has yet seen.
Fifty thousand tonnes into Mombasa
The United States has shipped close to 50,000 tonnes of wheat and rice to Kenya under Food for Peace, landing into a market where CBOT wheat fell 3.4% to 629 USc/bu, or 231 USD/t. Commercial millers on the coast will be recalculating cover for the next two windows. Sitting behind that: Australian researchers now predict the strongest El Niño since 1950, and the FAO is asking for help protecting Afghanistan's wheat harvest, where fertilizer costs threaten what would otherwise be the most promising season in years. Urea has not moved from 388 USD/t and DAP holds at 792.5 USD/t.
New nitrogen, slowly
Mexico's GPO ammonia plant in Sinaloa and Fermachem's Durango urea plant are both approaching completion, which would take a chunk of Mexican import demand out of the Gulf trade over the coming seasons. On the other side of the ledger, India's FACT has suspended ammonium sulphate production on input shortages, and Mosaic reported 1.4 million tonnes of phosphate sales volumes for the second quarter.
Freight stayed still: the Baltic Dry sat at 3,057 after snapping a five-day advance from a two-month high. The Hormuz picture remains the one set on 14 July, when US Central Command's renewed blockade of Iranian ports ended a 60-day ceasefire, with dry-bulk crossings still routed around it.