Insight
2025 zinc benchmark TC: a new era or a strategic move?
*Please note that this report only includes an Excel data file if this is indicated in "What's included" below
Report summary
The 2025 annual zinc benchmark contract treatment charge is understood to have been settled. Terms fell dramatically to less than half of last year’s figure, which was itself a record low in real terms. Is this the culmination of a process underway since 2018 – the move to be more like copper with annual contract TCs rooted solely in the concentrate market balance, with greater volatility and moving away from the tradition of value-sharing? Or is it also a strategic move by lower-cost smelting groups to accept short-term pain for long-term gain, by accepting a treatment charge that could lead to the permanent closure of high cost rest of world smelting capacity?
Table of contents
- A new era or smelter-led rationalisation, or both?
- The new era fully established
- Implications for smelters in 2025
- and/or strategic move for smelters to trigger rationalisation?
- Implications for miners
Tables and charts
This report includes the following images and tables:
- Zinc annual contract benchmark treatment charge
- TCs used to be closely correlated with zinc price. Value share of paid zinc price was a useful indicator of future TCs when considered with other negotiating points
- Realised annual benchmark TC and China spot TCs comparison
What's included
This report contains:
