EU turns to DRC copper as US draws record Chilean imports

Fears of tariffs drove theUS to import record levels of copper cathode during the first seven months of 2025, pulling supply away from Europe as Chilean exports were re-routed to the US to capture the wide arbitrage between CME and LME copper benchmarks.

The US drew in 342kt of Chilean copper in Q2 25 – equivalent to ~25% of Chile’s total mined output during the period. With a large share of Chilean brands CME-deliverable, suppliers in the region were well placed to exploit the arbitrage, which remained above $1,000/t for much of the year.

“We definitely saw the switch from South America to the US [from Europe], meaning [Europe] imported more from the DRC,” a trader said, pointing to the arbitrage premium.

The tightness created by Chilean copper heading to the US boosted imports of DRC copper into the European Union (EU), which increased 72% y-o-y in Q2 25 trade data shows. While the US also absorbed DRC copper, it was less pronounced than the EU given the scale of Chilean inflows to the US.

European imports of DRC copper had already been steadily growing in recent years, given the sharp rise in the DRC’s copper production. DRC mined copper output is forecast at 3.3Mt in 2025, up from 1.6Mt in 2020.

At the same time, Chinese imports from the DRC fell significantly across Q1 and Q2 2025, compared with previous quarters.

Russian-origin copper has also lost ground in Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As of April 2024, new Russian material is non-LME deliverable, and is considered less desirable than other brands in the market with Russian material largely being diverted to China.

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