China’s imports of unwrought copper, including anode, refined, alloy, and semi-finished copper products, rose 15.8% in May compared to the same period last year, reaching 514,000 metric tons. This was a better-than-expected performance, up 17.4% from April’s figures.
Analysts attributed the double-digit gains in copper imports primarily to higher flows of Russian-origin copper into China following western sanctions on Russian metals. After the London Metal Exchange and Chicago Mercantile Exchange banned Russian aluminum, copper, and nickel from their systems in April, China’s imports of refined copper from Russia rose 33.9% in the first four months of the year.
Additionally, the Democratic Republic of the Congo shipped more copper to China, helping offset earlier logistics-related delays. The unexpected surge in May imports could also be related to the timing of shipment arrivals, as the average of April and May imports was only slightly higher than March.
Shortages of copper concentrate also prompted Chinese smelters to import more unwrought copper as raw material. During the January-May period, China’s total imports of unwrought copper and products reached 2.33 million tons, up 8.8% from the same period a year earlier.
In contrast, imports of copper concentrate declined 11.7% year-on-year in May to 2.26 million tons, as a global supply shortage of mined copper persisted after a mine closure in Panama. However, the total copper concentrate imports in the first five months of 2024 still increased by 2.7% to 11.59 million tons compared to the same period in 2023.