China’s Copper Plants Mull Cuts After Years of Breakneck Growth

Years of relentless growth are finally catching up with China’s copper smelters.

Stung by disappearing profits, the country’s top industry body last week put forward a menu of options to limit oversupply, from bringing forward maintenance work to postponing new plants or even cutting production outright. The alarm bells are ringing following a collapse in the fees that processors charge miners because there’s not enough ore to go around.

Those fees have plunged to a record low of $21.90 a ton on a spot basis after global curtailments at mines, most consequentially the shuttering of First Quantum Minerals Ltd.’s ...