Richard Adkerson told Fastmarkets in an interview this was a key reason why the US producer has not been a fan of building a new copper smelter in Indonesia, although reiterated that it would stick to a prior commitment to do so if that was what the government requested.
“The bad economics for copper smelting have been there all along. Copper smelting only adds 5% or so to the value of the ultimate copper metal,” Adkerson added.
Noting growth in Chinese smelting capacity over the past couple...
