There has been an increase in prices for copper and scrap copper

North American scrap copper prices rose in April 2015 from the lowest price index. Chinese prices for copper scrap fell slightly in early April, but the preconditions for their recovery have already appeared.

The fact is that the price of copper on the exchanges remains below $ 3 a pound, but the red metal continues to slowly creep up, as questions about supply problems surface. The metal gained just over 1 percent this week at $ 2.76 a pound. Copper has been at this level since March 20, but gained 11.74 percent after hitting a multi-year low since January.

Scrap copper wire and tube prices rose slightly by $ 0.03 /lb. Insulated copper wire prices of the 85% recovery were up $ 0.02 a pound on the day. Scrap copper radiator prices saw a slight rise of $ 0.01 a pound from the previous day's levels. Prices for scrap metal from transformer copper, scrap from electric motors, closed units, starters remained unchanged during the day at the auction.

The improvement in the situation in the copper market may be primarily due to the fact that large miners have lowered their production forecasts for 2015. For example, BHP Billiton lowered its production forecast at Olympic Dam due to an electrical failure in February, while Freeport-McMoRan Grasberg temporarily halted production at the end of March.

More recently, devastating floods in Chile have forced a number of miners to suspend production. In addition, the country's state copper mining commission, Cochilco, lowered its production forecast from 6 million tonnes to 5.94 million tonnes this year. The change in the forecast is associated with negative weather conditions, which initially caused a severe drought in the region, followed by recent floods.