Copper Ore (Direct-Shipping Oxide & Sulphide Ore, 15%+ Cu)

Oxide and sulphide ore at 15%+ Cu that ships without a concentrator, priced as a share of contained copper on an independent assay

Raw copper ore at 15% Cu and above is ore rich enough to ship as mined, or after hand-sorting and crushing, without a concentrator. It is oxide ore of malachite (about 57% Cu as the pure mineral) and chrysocolla (about 37%), or sulphide ore of chalcocite (about 80%), bornite (about 63%) and chalcopyrite (about 34%), and it shares HS 2603 with flotation concentrate without being the same product. China's industry standard YS/T 318-2023 defines copper concentrate as a flotation product of at least 13% Cu for smelting, so a 15% ore that has not been floated is still ore, and the buyer reads its mineralogy before its grade: Chile's state buyer ENAMI tariffs oxide ore on its acid-soluble copper for heap leaching and SX-EW, and sulphide ore on its insoluble copper for flotation or direct smelting. The price is a share of the contained copper, and ENAMI's monthly tariff for small miners is the clearest public scale for it. Its September 2026 tariff (Circular No. 47, dated 3 September 2026, at a copper basis of 651.059 US cents/lb) pays USD 1,599.59 per dry tonne for direct-smelting ore at a 12% Cu base plus USD 136.88 for each further 1% Cu, about 93% of the contained copper at 12–15% Cu (USD 2,010 per dry tonne at 15%), against about 94% for 20% concentrate, 73% for 2.5% flotation ore and 56.5% for 2.5% heap-leach oxide ore. In China, clean domestic concentrate at 20% Cu was priced at 98% of contained copper on 29 September 2026 (Mysteel), and the 2026 annual benchmark treatment and refining charges for concentrate settled at zero. Impurities move a lot down that scale. ENAMI's direct-smelting tolerances are arsenic 0.2% (maximum 0.6%), antimony 0.1% (0.5%), lead 0.5% (4%), zinc 6% (10%), mercury 5 ppm (100 ppm), cadmium 50 ppm (120 ppm) and chlorine 0.5% (2.5%), with moisture tolerated to 3% on ores and 10% at most; China's GB/T 20424-2025, in force since 1 September 2025, caps copper concentrate at lead 6.00%, arsenic 0.50%, fluorine 0.10%, cadmium 0.05% and mercury 0.01%, and over-limit cargo risks being shipped back. Because ore and concentrate share a code, customs unit value is the only public sign of which is moving. Trade data show China importing 30.37 million MT under HS 2603 in 2025 at about USD 2,696/MT, while Pakistan declared 19,970 MT of exports at about USD 214/MT, 19,727 MT of it to China, and China declared 24,590 MT from Pakistan at about USD 460/MT; in 2024 Zambia declared 53,945 MT at about USD 501/MT, two-thirds of it to China, and Kenya 12,207 MT at about USD 387/MT, 98% to China. Grade is not declared, so these figures show where raw-ore sellers ship from, not what grade they ship.

The buyer is a smelter or ore importer, a leach plant, or a trader that blends small lots into smelter feed, and the enquiry is a grade, an oxide or sulphide split and an impurity sheet; one published Chinese buying request asks for oxide or sulphide ore at 10% Cu minimum, in trial lots of 50–500 MT and then 5,000 MT a month, CIF or FOB Lianyungang. Export rules decide which origins can supply at all. The Democratic Republic of the Congo prohibited copper and cobalt concentrate exports by a joint ministerial order of 29 June 2026, with only one-year ministerial waivers in strategic cases, and CBIL does not work Congolese ore or ore trucked out of the Congo across a border. Zambia charges a standing 10% export duty on copper ores and concentrates; the waiver under SI No. 43 of 2026 covered a capped 271,742 MT allocated to named mines from 1 June and expired on 30 September 2026 with no extension announced. Morocco's list of goods needing an export licence under Law 13-89 names copper waste and scrap and brass ingots but no copper ore line, Türkiye's export-registration list names copper and zinc scrap but not HS 2603, and Tanzania's Mining Commission issues a USD 100 export permit to mineral right holders and licensed dealers against proof of royalty and inspection fee, with broker-licence holders barred from exporting. China has banned solid-waste imports since 1 January 2021, so every lot is documented as mined ore with its mine of origin. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers raw copper ore from titled small miners and licensed exporters in Pakistan, Morocco, South Africa, Tanzania and Türkiye, each lot traced to the district and lease it was mined from and the royalty paid on it, against SGS, Alfred H Knight or Bureau Veritas weighing, sampling and assay of total and acid-soluble Cu, Au, Ag, As, Sb, Pb, Zn, Hg, Cd, F and moisture on a dry basis. Ore is coarser and less uniform than concentrate, so the sampling scheme, with crushing before the lot is split, is written into the contract alongside the copper splitting limit and a named umpire laboratory; the IGF-OECD copper pricing framework treats a copper splitting limit wider than 0.15–0.20% as possibly not arm's length, and lists no or limited provisional payment among the terms that shift value between buyer and seller. Lots move in 1 MT bulk bags in 20-foot containers on FOB, CFR, CIF or DAP terms, and because CBIL also runs a chartering desk (LaycanDesk), larger parcels are quoted with the freight. Send the grade, oxide or sulphide, the impurity assay, the tonnage on the ground and the load port, or, as a buyer, your grade floor, impurity ceilings and discharge port, and the lot is screened and worked against it.

See also: Copper concentrate 20–30% Cu, priced on payable Cu less TC/RC · Copper cathode (LME Grade A, Cu-CATH-1)

Need the ship as well? Our chartering desk prices concentrate freight, Group A cargoes on LaycanDesk.

Excluded origins are not offered, including product re-exported, blended or re-processed through a third country. Every lot moves with a certificate of origin naming the producing plant, mine or grower country, and nothing is quoted before the seller and loading point are known.