BHP Billiton has agreed to pay Pan Pacific Copper nearly 70% more in raw material processing fees, marking the first increase since 2006.
According to Pan Pacific, the higher fees will boost the company’s earnings and provide a benchmark for Asian smelters.
Tokyo-based Daiwa Institute of Research analyst, Masatoshi Kawada, says the increase will help Japanese smelters which have suffered from plunging copper prices and the yen’s increase against the dollar.
The revised fees have been set at approximately the same level as charges between Freeport and Mitsubishi Materials - $114 a metric tonne for smelting ore, and 7.5c a pound for refining.
According to Freeport, the newly revised levels will now set a benchmark for the 2009 copper industry.
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