Resources Policy 49 (2016) 112–118

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Resources Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resourpol

Production costs of the non-ferrous metals in the EU and other

countries: Copper and zinc
Aikaterini Boulamanti n, Jose Antonio Moya
European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Energy and Transport, Westerduinweg 3, 1755LE Petten, The Netherlands

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Our study compares production costs of the non-ferrous metals (NFM) industry in the European Union
Received 15 February 2016 (EU) and other countries in order to understand whether these costs are higher in Europe. Our analysis
Received in revised form focuses on copper and zinc, since they are considered to be the most greatly consumed non-ferrous
26 April 2016
metals after aluminium. The countries selected for comparison depend on the metal and are based on
Accepted 26 April 2016
Available online 9 May 2016
high shares of extra-EU28 trade and/or of global installed capacity. A bottom-up approach has been
followed, based on information at facility level for primary production of the two metals. The analysis
Keywords: includes 32 copper smelters, 34 copper refineries and 23 zinc smelters, representing 72%, 58% and 30% of
Production costs global production of copper anodes, cathodes and zinc slab respectively. Taking into consideration the
Primary production
complex structure of the industry, costs are broken down to three components: (1) Energy, (2) Labour
Cost breakdown
and other costs (salaries, consumables and other on-site costs) and (3) Credits (due to co-products). Our
Copper smelters
Copper refineries findings suggest that although interesting observations emerge in each of these components, overall
Zinc smelters costs compare more favourably among countries than initially thought. The EU industry does not have
the highest production costs. On the contrary, especially in the case of copper refineries and zinc, it has
lower production costs than most of the countries included in the study.
& 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

1. Introduction industries are limited (Scholtens and Yurtsever, 2012; Ren et al.,
2009). There are some studies that assess production costs of non-
Discussions concerning the competitiveness of the European ferrous metals (NFM) (Figuerola-Ferretti, 2005; Adams and Duroc-
industry, both in the industry and in the European Commission, Danner, 1987), all referring to aluminium, or the economics of
have raised the issue of cost differences between Europe and other energy policies on copper production (David and Zandi, 1979), but
countries. In the communication “For an European Industrial Re- they are all not recent. Only one report was identified that aimed
naissance” (European Commission, 2014a) it was acknowledged at providing the European Commission with an up-to-date un-
that production costs, especially energy costs, might be higher in derstanding of the competitiveness of the EU NFM industry, that
Europe than in other competitor states. included not only aluminium, but also copper, zinc and other
The non-ferrous metals industry includes a number of metals metals (ECORYS, 2011).
distinguished from the ferrous ones thanks to their non-magnetic It has been observed that copper and zinc have received limited
attention in literature, although together with aluminium they
properties and their resistance to corrosion. Aluminium is the
represent more than 85% of annual global NFM production (EC-
mostly used one, while the second and third highest usages are for
ORYS, 2011). As a result, the goal of the present study was to es-
copper and zinc (European Commission, 2014b). Studies usually
tablish the different parameters that affect production costs of
focus on energy use and CO2 emissions of the nonferrous metals
both metals.
industry (Yanjia and Chandler, 2010; Lucio et al., 2013) or generally For both copper and zinc there are two processes that can be
energy-intensive industries (Makridou et al., 2016) or on the im- applied to produce primary metal: hydrometallurgical and pyr-
pact of environmental legislation on competitiveness (Demailly ometallurgical. In the case of copper it is rather the latter used
and Quirion, 2008; Meleo, 2014; Korhonen et al., 2015; Söderholm (80% of primary copper worldwide (Richardson, 2000)), while in
et al., 2015). Studies on economic assessment of energy-intensive the case of zinc the former accounts for about 90% to 95% of total
world output (European Commission, 2014b; Schwab et al., 2015).
n
Corresponding author.
Excluding mining, the copper industry consists of smelters and
E-mail addresses: aikaterini.boulamanti@ec.europa.eu (A. Boulamanti), refineries. Smelters process sulphuric concentrates of low-grade
jose.moya@ec.europa.eu (J.A. Moya). copper ores, originating from mines, and produce copper anodes,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2016.04.011
0301-4207/& 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
 A. Boulamanti, J.A. Moya / Resources Policy 49 (2016) 112–118 113

while refineries produce copper cathodes from copper anodes. did not include any copper produced at the mine-site following
Copper cathodes have purity between 99.97% and 99.99% and in a the hydrometallurgical route, which as mentioned before re-
further step can be melted and cast in different shapes of semi- presents about 20% of global primary copper (Richardson, 2000).
finalised products, such as billets, cakes or wide rods. The two The analysis was based mainly on primary production of the me-
processes can be either in the same site or in different ones. tals. Even if the European recycling industry is among the most
In the zinc industry, on the other hand, both smelting and re- advanced in the world and the savings compared to primary route
fining usually take place on the same site. Starting material is could reach up to 85% in the case of copper (Grimes et al., 2008),
usually sulphuric zinc concentrates that in an intermediary step both energy consumption and costs in secondary production are
need to be oxidised, and the final product is zinc deposited on the strongly depending on the quality of the scrap. In addition, there is
cathodes, from where it is collected, melted and cast into slabs or no commercial or public information available about global re-
ingots. cycling of zinc and copper with the required degree of detail. Be-
In 2013 global copper mine production was estimated to be cause of these two reasons, we excluded secondary production
about 18.3 Mt, with Chile being the largest producer, followed by costs from the comparison. It should be noted that other studies
China, Peru and the USA (U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), 2015), (ECORYS, 2011) also reported difficulties in distinguishing between
while global smelter production of copper reached 13.8 Mt if only energy costs for primary and secondary processing.
primary production is considered (Minerals U.K., 2015) or 16.8 Mt Table 1 shows the number of facilities included in the database
if also secondary production is included (International Copper and therefore in this study. The differences between 2012 and
Study Group (ICSG), 2014). China accounted for about 27% of this 2013 were that a new copper smelter started operating in China
production and the EU and Chile for 11% and 10%, respectively. adding 0.5 Mt in the total capacity of the country, one copper re-
Global refinery production of copper was 20.9 Mt, including 3.8 Mt finery closed down but another started also in China incrementing
of secondary refined production (Minerals U.K., 2015; Interna- Chinese total refinery capacity 0.4 Mt and a zinc smelter in Bul-
tional Copper Study Group (ICSG), 2014), 31% of which was located garia closed down.
in China and 13% in the EU. The European Union is relying highly
on imports of ores and concentrates. In 2013, the industry im- 2.2. Components of the cost
ported copper ore mainly from Chile, Peru and Brazil (Eurostat,
2016a), whereas Chile (44%), Peru and Zambia were the origin of Our analysis did not include depreciation and was focused
imports of refined copper in the form of cathodes (Eurostat, entirely on production costs of the primary route. Costs in this
2016b). study were broken down to three components:
Concerning zinc, global slab production in 2013 reached
13.2 Mt (Minerals U.K., 2015), with China being the largest pro- a. Energy
ducer both in mining and smelting. China's share of slab produc- b. Labour & other costs
tion was 40% and the EU's 15%. In the same year, total extra- c. Credits (due to the value of co-products)
EU imports of refined zinc were 0.16 Mt and exports 0.38 Mt
(Eurostat, 2016b). Most of refined zinc was imported from Norway Energy costs include electricity and other fuels such as natural
and Namibia, while historically Russia and Kazakhstan have also gas, fuel oil, coal or coke used in the facilities. Copper smelters are
had high percentages of trade with the EU. high consumers of energy, although to a much lesser extent than
the aluminium ones. Copper refineries are also power intensive
processes. The major source of energy in electrolytic zinc smelters
2. Methodology is electricity.
Labour and other costs consist of salaries for supervision, op-
2.1. Boundaries and method eration and maintenance, as well as maintenance items, consum-
able and other on-site costs. Maintenance items generally refer to
As already mentioned, in this analysis we assessed if produc- everything used to keep the smelter operational, while consum-
tion costs of copper and zinc in Europe are higher than in other ables to everything used to operate the smelter. The range of items
competing countries. For this comparison the chosen countries covered is wide and depends on the technology used. Other on-
were based on EU imports data (Eurostat, 2016a, 2016b). For site costs include services such as water and communications,
copper the countries selected were China, Chile, Peru and Zambia, rates and property taxes and infrastructure costs such as general
while for zinc the comparison was done among the EU, China, site maintenance. These costs usually depend on local factors and
Russia, Kazakhstan, Norway and Namibia. China was also included are not necessarily proportional to capacity.
because of its leading position as global producer, even if it had a Valuable co-products were taken into consideration as credits,
low trading share with the EU. which were deducted from total expenses. For copper, credits
In order to evaluate the costs of manufacturing processes, we originate from sulphur by-products in the case of smelters and
follow a bottom-up approach based on information at facility level from nickel salts and cathode premiums in the case of refineries.
provided by Wood Mackenzie (Wood Mackenzie, 2015a). The da- The most common copper ores are sulphuric, with sulphur
tabase covers more than 90% of total primary production from contents varying significantly. High sulphur content may have
copper smelters worldwide and about 93% of the Chinese copper impact on the energy balance of the smelter, affecting its opera-
production in 2013 (Wood Mackenzie, 2015b). In the case of zinc, tion. Nevertheless, the driving force behind producing sulphuric
the global coverage is over 80%, including all of China with the by-products (mainly sulphuric acid, but in some cases also gypsum
exception of very small smelters, resulting in about 65% total and liquid SO2) in the industry is environmental regulations rather
production coverage in this country (Wood Mackenzie, 2015c). The than economic factors. Environmental legislation in Latin America
analysis was done for 2012 and 2013. has become more stringent in recent years. Europe has in general
The facilities covered fall with classes 24.43 and 24.44 of the high total sulphur collection efficiencies, reflecting the stringency
NACE REV.2 classification. The boundaries of our study were at the of environmental legislation. Global trends in the base years of the
gate of smelters or refineries. This means that we included neither study (2012 and 2013) were that sulphur prices were decreasing.
mining and preparation of ores, nor casting carried out after The acid selling price for individual smelters was almost entirely
manufacturing of copper cathodes and zinc slab or ingot. We also based on the region in which the smelter is located.
114 A. Boulamanti, J.A. Moya / Resources Policy 49 (2016) 112–118

Table 1
Number and capacity of copper smelters and refineries and zinc smelters in 2012, in the countries considered for each metal.

Countries Copper smelters Copper refineries Zinc smelters

Number Capacity (Mt) Number Capacity (Mt) Number Capacity (Mt)

Chile 7 2.0 3 1.1

Peru 1 0.4 1 0.3
Zambia 3 0.6 2 0.5
EU 8 2.5 12 2.7 11 2.0
China 13 4.4 16 5.1 6 1.0
Russia 2 0.3
Kazakhstan 2 0.3
Norway 1 0.2
Namibia 1 0.2
Total 32 9.9 34 9.7 23 4.0

In most refineries, nickel originates in the anodes and is an Cost = Consumption or Production*Price
impurity that needs to be removed so as to ensure the quality of
copper cathode. It is recovered from the electrolyte as a by-pro- Co-products yields and consumptions of electricity and fuels
duct, usually as nickel sulphate. Nickel removal does not always are technology specific and expressed as MWh of electricity or
offer the opportunity of a financial return, as it is an impure pro- tonne of fuel and co-product per tonne of main product. The va-
duct that cannot be avoided. Cathode premiums, on the other lues used in this study were based on literature (European Com-
hand, are part of the revenue of refineries and used to reflect the mission, 2014b; Richardson, 2000; Grimes et al., 2008; Nussir,
quality of final product, but in more recent years have been con- 2015) and the Wood Mackenzie database (Wood Mackenzie,
nected to the projected supply and demand situation and freight 2015a).
costs to customers. They are included in the analysis, since dis- Exceptions to this general formula were labour, nickel sulphate
regarding them would distort net costs of the copper industry. credits and cathode premiums. Labour was a function of man-
Besides these co-products, it is worth mentioning that the power, productivity and the hours worked in the plant multiplied
copper and zinc industry also produces other metals such as gold, by the cost of man-hours. For nickel sulphate, on the other hand,
silver, selenium and tellurium in the case of copper, or lead, silver, the database (Wood Mackenzie, 2015a) assumed that on average
cadmium and germanium for zinc. A portion of these metals is sulphate contains 22% nickel and that the refinery obtains a net
paid back to the mines, but the remaining could generate credits. return equivalent to 60% of the contained metal. This methodology
Unfortunately, there is no consistent data concerning these by- was applied only to refineries that report production of nickel. The
products and how they are managed between the smelters/re- price assumed for 2012 was 1815 EUR/tnickel sulphate and for 2013
fineries and the mines. As a result, these valuable co-products 1493 EUR/tnickel sulphate (Wood Mackenzie, 2015a). On the contrary
could not be included in the current study. to nickel sulphate prices, cathode premiums were reported di-
It should be noted that raw materials costs were not considered rectly from refineries.
as a component of the production cost. This is due to the nature of Tables 2 and 3 include average values of consumptions and
the non-ferrous industry. Mines produce copper concentrates that prices respectively, used in calculating the components of the costs
are sold to smelters and refineries for their copper content. The for 2013 as base year.
income of mines is a function of mainly the final metal price and Table 2 provides raw materials consumption, aggregated elec-
the quality of concentrate. The final price of base metals is decided tricity and total net energy consumption (including electricity).
in international metal exchanges, most importantly the London Net energy consumption was the total energy consumed in pro-
Metal Exchange (LME), but also the Shanghai Futures Exchange cesses minus credits for power or steam generated. In copper
(SHFE) and the Commodity Exchange Inc (COMEX) (ECORYS, 2011; smelters, energy was consumed in extracting copper from con-
Nussir, 2015). The final price paid for the finished product consists centrates to produce anodes and in associated processes, such as
of the price determined on the metals exchange plus a regional oxygen and acid plants. In refineries, it corresponded to the elec-
cathode premium (ECORYS, 2011). Smelters and refineries require trolytic refining process, including on-site anode casting where
concentrate specifications that limit the amount of impurities al- appropriate and waste heat steam supplied by an associated
lowable in concentrates, otherwise financial penalties are levied. smelter for heating. However, waste heat from integrated anode
Typically, after treatment charges (TCs) and refining charges (RCs), casting plant was not taken into consideration. For zinc, the net
the smelter pays to the producer 96–97% of the metal value con- energy consumption was based on the total process of extracting
tained in the concentrate (Nussir, 2015). TCs and RCs are usually zinc from raw materials, including power generated inside the
fixed on annual basis. RCs exist only in the case of copper, while facility as credit. Energy consumption is not disaggregated further
TCs in both copper and zinc. to individual fuels in Table 2, as the energy mix in the different
To conclude, raw material prices are set in the global market facilities varied significantly.
and usually passed on directly to customers, thus they are not Table 3 illustrates prices in 2013 for different energy sources,
considered a source of competitive advantage or disadvantage. usual co-products and labour. It should be noted that Table 3
Therefore, we excluded raw material prices from this competi- shows average values for all three types of facilities (copper
tiveness analysis that is solely linked to factors such as energy smelters, copper refineries and zinc smelters), while in the ana-
prices, labour costs and to a lesser extent to exchange rates. lysis individual values were applied. These individual values were
in some cases facility- or technology-specific and in other cases
2.3. Prices and consumptions country-specific. The EU is also different compared to the other
countries, as it consists of 28 Member States, but in the tables we
The general formula used for estimating the components of the provide only average values of all EU countries.
costs was: For each facility the three components of the cost were
 A. Boulamanti, J.A. Moya / Resources Policy 49 (2016) 112–118 115

Table 2
Raw materials, energy consumptions and productivity in the copper and zinc industry in 2013.

Consumptions EU China Chile Peru Zambia Russia Kazakhstan Norway Namibia

Copper smelters Concentrates (t/t Cuanode) 3.43 4.05 3.60 3.89 3.53
Electricity (MWh/t Cuanode) 1.10 1.90 1.20 1.11 1.39
Total net energy (GJ/t Cuanode) 9.57 9.92 9.44 8.57 11.22
Productivity (t Cuanode/man) 489 261 255 403 297
Copper refineries Anodes (t/t Cucathode) 1.17 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.22
Electricity (MWh/t Cucathode) 0.40 0.35 0.35 0.30 0.52
Total net energy (GJ/t Cucathode) 2.43 3.08 2.52 1.09 2.83
Productivity (t Cucathode/man) 1877 717 585 597 435
Zinc smelters Concentrates (t/t Zn) 1.99 2.54 2.11 2.36 1.84 11.29
Electricity (MWh/t Zn) 3.76 4.06 4.44 4.60 4.50 4.60
Total net energy (GJ/t Zn) 19.98 21.94 31.35 37.85 16.31 16.59
Productivity (t Zn/man) 341 85 81 123 535 264

Table 3 infrastructure (Wood Mackenzie, 2015b). In addition, labour costs

Prices of energy used, labour and credits in the copper and zinc industry in 2013. were also high in the two countries of South America. In recent
years there has been an increasing number of claims to get higher
Electricity Natural Fuel oil Sulphuric Cathode Hourly
(EUR/ gas (EUR/t) acid premium labour labour remuneration rates within the copper industry, mainly due
MWh) (EUR/ (EUR/t) (EUR/t (EUR/h) the increase in copper prices. Much of the wage inflation pressure
MWh) Cucathode) in smelters originated in the mining industry and it is notable that
many of the smelters with the highest wages have been those
EU 58.9 35.6 648.0 24.1 28.0 28.4
China 60.6 23.9 610.5 9.3 35.6 2.4 directly tied to a local mine, such as the majority of Chilean
Chile 105.9 62.3 512.2 57.8 5.6 24.6 smelters (The Economist, 2015; Sanderson, 2015). Chilean re-
Peru 86.2 552.4 51.3 56.2 14.4 fineries had also the highest labour costs (Fig. 1(c)), although Chile
Zambia 43.3 574.5 106.2 28.9 3.8
did not have the most expensive hourly labour as shown in Ta-
Russia 56.2 9.7 32.3 7.0
Kazakhstan 18.9 539.1 23.0 7.1 ble 3. Europe (EU and Norway) had higher hourly rates. Never-
Norway 39.1 842.6 29.8 55.3 theless, these countries also had high productivity thanks to the
Namibia 19.6 11.0 use of more automated plants and hence labour costs were
minimised.
Concerning credits, as already mentioned, sulphur prices tend
estimated, based on the individual characteristics of it, such as
size, technology used and location. Then for each country the to decrease, a fact that reflected in Fig. 1(a) and (e) for copper and
average was calculated weighted according to capacity: zinc, respectively. An important factor affecting the price of sul-
phur by-products in the copper industry is when a smelter sells its
Weighted average=∑ (Capacity × Cost )/∑ Capacity acid on an intra-company transfer basis, for example for a me-
tallurgical operation. Such arrangements typically occur in the
The total production costs for each country are the sum of the
Latin and North American regions, thus the credits in Chile and
weighted averages of the three components for this country.
Peru were higher than in the rest of the world. High sulphuric acid
were also noticed in Zambia (Table 3), mainly because of high
transport costs and long distances, as well as the fact that Zambia’s
3. Results and discussion
industry is based on oxide ores and not sulphuric ores as in the
rest of the countries, making sulphuric acid rare.
Following the methodology explained before, we were able to
Particularly in the case of copper refineries, as they are con-
produce comparative values for the various countries selected per
suming less electricity than smelters (Table 2), the decrease in
metal. Fig. 1 summarises the overall average production costs for
electricity prices did not greatly influence total expenses. On the
copper smelters and refineries and for zinc smelters.
As it can be seen from the disaggregated values in Fig. 1, total other hand, in some cases cathode premiums were not enough to
expenses (energy and labour) in 2013 were lower than in 2012, cover the costs related to the supply and demand situation and
thanks mainly to lower electricity prices in 2013. But as credits therefore they seemed to be penalties to refineries which are
were also lower in 2013, total production costs increased in the distant from their markets and long overland transport costs
majority of the countries. magnify this effect. This phenomenon was more visible in Zambia
In the case of copper, energy costs in most countries were and in Peru in 2013.
about 30–35% of total expenses of smelters and refineries, and In the zinc industry (Fig. 1(e) and (f)), except for Russia, there
labour and other costs the remaining 65–70%. These figures agree were less remarkable differences among the countries compared.
with the cost structure suggested by ECORYS (ECORYS, 2011). The Russia had the highest production costs, while costs in Europe were
only exception was China, where labour costs were still much comparable to the ones in China. Once again the difference in la-
lower than in the rest of the countries, as China had the lowest bour costs between China and the rest of the countries was obvious.
hourly rates among the countries compared (Table 3). As average values do not give a clear idea of the range of
South America had much higher production costs than Europe, variability of the costs, we also include in Fig. 2 the maximum and
China or Zambia. All components of the costs in Chile and Peru minimum values and average total specific costs and the same
were higher than in the rest of the countries compared. Chile had information for a breakdown of the costs in each country. Each
the highest electricity price compared to all copper producing curve represents a component of the cost, and for each curve the
countries (Table 3), justified by the fact that in this country there countries are ranked according to their increasing average costs.
has been a shortage of electrical power as a result of increasing Each vertical line joins the minimum and maximum cost esti-
consumption and lack of investments in the power generation mated for each country according to their different performances
116 A. Boulamanti, J.A. Moya / Resources Policy 49 (2016) 112–118

Credit Total costs 2012

Labour and other Total costs 2013
800
(a) Energy 450 (b)
700 400
600
350
500
300
EUR/t Cu anode

EUR/t Cu anode
400
300 250
200
200
100
150
0
-100 100
-200 50
-300
0
EU CHN CHL PER ZMB -- EU CHN CHL PER ZMB

(c) 250
(d)
250

200 200
EUR/t Cu cathode

EUR/t Cu cathode
150
150
100
100
50

50
0

-50 0
EU CHN CHL PER ZMB -- EU CHN CHL PER ZMB

700 (e) 700 (f)

600 600

500 500

400 400
EUR/t Zn

EUR/t Zn

300
300
200
200
100
100
0
0
EU CHN RUS KAZ NOR NAM EU CHN RUS KAZ NOR NAM
Fig. 1. Summary of total production costs for copper and zinc (a) copper smelters costs per component, (b) total costs for copper smelters, (c) copper refineries costs per
component, (d) total costs for copper refineries, (e) zinc smelters costs per component and (f) total costs for zinc smelters.

and prices. If there is no vertical line in the figures, it means that main reason EU production costs were not lower than Peru and
either there is no variation among facilities of the corresponding China was due to higher credits and lower wages respectively.
country or there is only one plant. Here we discuss only the results In the case of copper refineries (Fig. 2(b)), the EU industry was
for 2013. much more competitive than most of the countries from which
From Fig. 2(a), it can be seen that the minimum of total pro- copper cathodes were imported. It should be mentioned again,
duction costs in EU copper smelters is similar to the Chinese that the EU was not importing from China in the period 2006–
average. Chilean smelters, on the other hand, as already seen, had 2014 (Eurostat, 2016a). The analysis of variability of costs showed
much higher total production costs than EU, although Chile re- that there were no big variations in the production costs of Eur-
presented the majority of European imports of final copper pro- opean refineries and the average European production cost was
ducts in 2012 and 2013. It is interesting to note that average en- towards the second lowest.
ergy costs in Europe were the second lowest among the countries Concerning zinc smelters, we observed again homogeneous
compared, although they are usually the ones recognised as pos- total average costs among most countries, with only exception
sibly higher than competitors (European Commission, 2014a). The Russia (Fig. 2(c)). It is worth noticing though, that the maximum
 A. Boulamanti, J.A. Moya / Resources Policy 49 (2016) 112–118 117

Fig. 2. Average cost-curves and intervals encompassing the maximum and minimum for 2013 (a) copper smelters, (b) copper refineries and (c) zinc smelters. Note for this
figure: this figure is produced through excel with the use of macros. It is attached as picture because its components are sensitive to movements.

production costs in the EU were higher than the Russian ones. The Copper industry is distinguished in two parts: smelters with
great variation in the EU values could be attributed to the big final product copper anodes and refineries with final product
differences in electricity prices in the member states. Nevertheless, copper cathodes. Zinc industry consists of only smelters with final
the average energy costs in the EU could not be clearly considered product zinc slab or ingot. In 2012 total average costs in the EU
much higher than in competitive countries. were 263 EUR/t Cuanode, 40 EUR/t Cucathode and 437 EUR/t Zn, for
copper smelters, copper refineries and zinc smelters respectively.
In 2013 total average costs were 279 EUR/t Cuanode, 45 EUR/t
4. Conclusions Cucathode and 447 EUR/t Zn, respectively.
From our analysis we concluded that the EU zinc and copper
The aim of the present study was to evaluate if production costs cathodes industries were more competitive than their major
in the European copper and zinc industry are higher than in other competitors. The EU copper anodes industry was more competi-
countries, as it has been claimed for the European industry in tive than Chile (417 EUR/t Cuanode in 2013), comparable to Peru and
general. The countries selected for comparison included China, as China and less competitive than Zambia. In the case of copper
it is the leading production country in the world for both metals, refineries, the European copper industry had much lower pro-
and countries from which the EU has currently or historically high duction costs than the countries from where most of imports of
percentages of imports of the final products considered in this copper cathodes were originating. Due to high automation and
study. These countries were Chile, Peru and Zambia for copper and high cathode premiums, the European average was comparable to
Russia, Kazakhstan, Norway and Namibia for zinc. the average costs in China (23 EUR/t Cucathode in 2013). The zinc
118 A. Boulamanti, J.A. Moya / Resources Policy 49 (2016) 112–118

European industry had similar production costs as Kazakhstan, References

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