Lack of containers, high shipping costs complicate Peru's concentrates exports

A lack of available containers for shipments out of the main Peruvian port of Callao, and shipping costs that have tripled since the start of this year, were hampering exports of copper, zinc and lead from the South American country, even as mine production was recovering from shutdowns in 2020 that were forced by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Peru was the world's third-largest producer of zinc in 2020 and was the top exporter of zinc concentrates, according to data from the International Zinc & Lead Study Group. This was despite the decrease in mine production resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.
In 2019, the country was the world's top producer of mined lead and the second largest miner of copper.
A shortfall in mine output in Peru and elsewhere was a catalyst for surging prices in base metals, notably copper, which hit an all-time-high dollar price of $10,747 per tonne on May 10 this year.

But faltering exports have damaged the physical metal markets in the form of treatment charges (TCs) paid to smelters that process zinc, copper and lead concentrates. These charges dropped when demand from the world's refining hub, China, started to pick up, just as mining centers such as Peru and Chile shut...

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