Backed by the German government and armed with decades of commodities trading experience, Securing Energy for Europe (SEFE) is moving into metals with a deliberate, risk-managed strategy designed to bridge the worlds of energy and industry, a company executive has said.

The effect of the fatal rock burst at Codelco’s flagship El Teniente mine will be greater than initially expected, with copper production losses now forecast to reach 48,000 tonnes in 2025, the Chilean producer’s chairman has said.

Critical minerals investment company TechMet Ltd is setting up a new trading arm, TechMet SCM, backed by additional investment from Mercuria Energy Trading.

The US is launching its first Strategic Minerals Reserve at Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada, designed as a platform for storage, refining and recycling to strengthen supply chain security.

The US is confronting a copper supply shortfall, but one company believes that it already holds the key to unlocking hundreds of thousands of tonnes of refined copper – right here, right now.

When the US opted not to impose Section 232 tariffs on copper cathode imports last month, the market breathed a sigh of relief.

Global aluminium producer Alcoa has already diverted 100,000 tonnes of Canadian metal away from the US market in response to uncertainty about import tariffs with trade measures continuing to upend traditional trade flows and pushing the company to rethink its global supply strategy, its chief executive officer said.

The United States’ copper recycling industry is ramping up pressure on policymakers to impose some form of export controls on high-purity copper scrap, arguing that current trade dynamics – particularly with China – are distorting prices, weakening domestic capacity and undermining national security goals.

The global copper market has finally received the widely anticipated news that imports to the US will be tariffed from August 1. The finer details of the tariffs, including their scope, and whether key copper-exporting nations like Chile, Canada and Peru will be exempt, remain unclear.