CMJ Daily Tape
SUPPLY FORECAST | COPPER
The International Copper Study Group (ICSG) forecast on Wednesday that the global refined copper market will stay in surplus through 2027, with the surplus widening from about 104,000 t in 2026 to about 368,000 t in 2027, according to Mining Weekly. The ICSG expects world refined copper production to rise about 0.4% in 2026 and 3.4% in 2027, and apparent refined usage to grow about 1.5% in 2026 and 2.5% in 2027. Mine production is forecast to grow about 1.3% in 2026 and 3.1% in 2027. The group said next year's increase in refined output will come from the ramp-up of smelters and refineries in Indonesia, India and the European Union.
The ICSG's 2027 surplus is a refinery number, not a mine number. Refined output is forecast to grow 3.4% against mine growth of 3.1%, and the difference is new smelting capacity in Indonesia, India and the European Union. Those smelters need concentrate before they produce cathode, and their ramp-ups run on feed contracts signed now. Watch the next annual treatment-charge settlement: if new smelters compete for the same concentrate, the surplus appears as cathode while smelter margins carry the cost.
OFFTAKE | ANTIMONY
ASX-listed Larvotto Resources has shipped its first antimony concentrate from the Hillgrove mine in New South Wales, Australia, Mining Weekly reported. The 68 t shipment is due for delivery to Wogen Resources, the company's antimony offtake partner. Larvotto said the antimony circuit is running at a steady rate and it is preparing its first gold concentrate shipment. The company expects Hillgrove to reach nameplate capacity of 4,900 t/y of antimony and 40,500 oz/y of gold soon; tungsten is the plant's third product.
68 t is about 1.4% of Hillgrove's 4,900 t/y antimony nameplate, so this is a qualification cargo, not supply. What matters is what Wogen does with it: a concentrate has to clear a converter's specification on grade and penalty elements before it becomes trioxide or metal. Larvotto gave no grade figures. Until a converter accepts repeat cargoes to specification, 4,900 t/y is a plant rating, not contracted, deliverable units.
SECONDARY SUPPLY | COPPER
Secondary copper rod producers in China ran at an operating rate of 11.55% in September 2026, below the expected 13.06%, down 0.28 percentage points month on month and 14.23 points year on year, according to Shanghai Metals Market (SMM). The most-traded SHFE copper contract broke above 110,000 yuan/mt during the month. SMM said tighter enforcement of reverse invoicing for scrap users and a shortage of compliant tax-inclusive raw material held back buying; China's copper scrap imports in August were 177,400 mt, down 19.04% month on month.
At 11.55%, secondary rod capacity is close to idle, and SMM puts the cause on paperwork, not price. Without compliant invoices a scrap user cannot run tax-inclusive feed, so a spread to cathode rod of 766 to 2,114 yuan/mt never turns into throughput. Cable makers that qualified secondary rod to cut cost fall back on cathode rod. That moves demand onto refined cathode inside China while scrap imports fell 19.04% in August.
M&A | LITHIUM
Ensorcia Group Holdings has signed a binding letter of intent to acquire 100% of Argentina Wildcats LLC, which holds interests in the former LEXI lithium property in Argentina, for cash plus contingent consideration; no amounts were disclosed. The deal adds about 50,000 hectares to the roughly 17,000 hectares Ensorcia and affiliates already hold, for about 67,000 hectares. The property joins the Katal 1 program, which uses International Battery Metals' direct lithium extraction technology under an exclusive Argentina license. Closing is subject to legal review and customary conditions.
Ensorcia nearly quadruples its acreage and gives no capacity, recovery or flow-rate figure. For a DLE project the binding number is not hectares but brine chemistry and flow per well, because a sorbent or ion-exchange unit is sized to a specific lithium and impurity profile. Ensorcia cites flow testing on the property but publishes no results. Until Katal 1 states a plant design rate, 67,000 hectares is a permit position, not a production pathway.
RESOURCE DRILLING | TITANIUM-VANADIUM
SAGA Metals has received final assays from its 85-hole, 22,432 m resource drilling program at the Trapper Zone of its Radar titanium-vanadium-iron project near Cartwright, Labrador, Canada. Hole R-0085 returned 495.6 m grading 37.86% Fe2O3, 5.51% TiO2 and 0.273% V2O5. GeoGlobal LLC is preparing a maiden NI 43-101 mineral resource estimate, expected in Q4 2026. Bench-scale tests with Temas' RCL technology returned recoveries of up to 90.8% titanium, 97.4% vanadium and 91.5% iron.
The 0.273% V2O5 over 495.6 m is a titanomagnetite grade, and in that ore type vanadium rides on the iron. The recoveries quoted are bench-scale, from a proprietary process with no pilot data yet. A buyer of vanadium pentoxide or titanium feedstock qualifies product, not drill core. The next useful number from SAGA is not resource tonnage but the specification of the first high-purity samples from its Stage 2 testing.
