Reuters reported on 19 December 2025 that Antofagasta and a Chinese smelter agreed treatment and refining charges for 2026 of 0 dollars a metric tonne and 0 cents a pound. The sources declined to name the smelter. The 2025 charges, agreed the previous December, were 21.25 dollars a tonne and 2.125 cents a pound. The 2026 terms also matched a mid-year 2025 settlement at zero. The IEA, writing on 2 March 2026, recorded that annual benchmark at 0 dollars a tonne, the lowest annual settlement in the series it tracks. Miners have paid smelters to turn concentrate into metal. At zero, that benchmark payment is gone.
The 2026 benchmark is zero dollars a tonne. The January price was a different print.
The copper price did the opposite. The IEA said the price briefly exceeded 14,500 dollars a tonne in an intraday print in January 2026, after passing 12,000 dollars a tonne for the first time in December 2025. A buyer of the price is buying the metal. A smelter that lives on the benchmark is paid to process it. Those prints moved apart.
Spot is a third print. Reuters said outages at Grasberg and at Kamoa-Kakula tightened concentrate enough that spot processing fees turned negative, so on the spot market some smelters were paying for a line that used to pay them. The annual deal at zero means the benchmark smelter avoids that payment. It does not restore the 21.25 dollar fee. The IEA said spot charges have been negative since 2024, and it did not print a spot dollar in the commentary. No spot dollar is invented here.
A custom smelter buys the concentrate
A custom smelter buys concentrate on the market. An integrated smelter takes it from a mine it is tied to. The IEA says the custom smelter is the one exposed when the fee is zero. China accounted for about half of global copper smelting in 2025, from around 15 percent in 2005, and for more than 90 percent of the growth since 2005. The China Smelters Purchase Team said its members would cut production by more than 10 percent in 2026. The IEA says the top smelters agreed a cut of that size, that the government halted around 2 million tonnes of planned new smelting capacity, and that the cuts are not enough to lift the fee. China remains a net importer of refined copper, so large closures are unlikely. The IEA also says a new mine takes about 17 years from discovery to production, and that average ore grades are down 40 percent since 1991. Scarce concentrate against a larger smelter fleet is how a fee goes to zero while the metal price prints a high.
Zero is not the whole smelter. The IEA says gold, silver, and sulphuric acid, plus high premiums on refined copper, are still covering some plants. Aurubis can sell wire rod and a European cathode premium beside a custom smelter. A custom smelter that exports cathode has less of that offset. The revenue that used to be a processing fee now leans on by-products and premiums. Those are different markets from the copper price and from the benchmark.
The pit pages are the other objects. Whether Jakarta extends Grasberg past 2041 is a license. Whether Escondida has water is a pump. Neither number is 0 dollars a tonne. A Grasberg restart would add concentrate. It would not, by itself, put 21.25 dollars back on the annual benchmark. A later annual benchmark at or above 21.25 dollars a tonne would put the processing fee back. Until that print, the 2026 benchmark is zero and the January price was a different object.
The 2026 treatment charge is zero dollars a tonne. The 2025 charge was 21.25. The January price was a different print.