Copper's refining benchmark fell to zero for 2026, a first

More than two-thirds of mined silver, around 70%, comes out of the ground as a by-product of copper, lead, zinc, and gold mining rather than from dedicated silver mines (Silver Institute). World silver mine production runs roughly 26,000 tonnes a year (USGS). The volume of silver mined therefore depends on how much base metal the world is digging up, not on the silver price.

Mines sell ore as concentrate, a half-processed rock, and pay a smelter a treatment and refining charge (TC/RC) to turn it into metal. The charge rises when concentrate is plentiful and falls when it is scarce and smelters compete for limited ore.

For 2026 the benchmark copper treatment charge settled at $0 per tonne, its first zero on record. In 2023 it was $88. At zero, smelters earn nothing to refine copper, a reading that reflects scarce concentrate relative to smelting capacity.

The finished-metal side reads differently. Copper held in London Metal Exchange warehouses drained to a low near 91,000 tonnes in mid-2025, then roughly quadrupled to about 400,000 tonnes by spring 2026, and stands near 356,000 today. The futures curve is in mild contango, the three-month price about $70 above spot. And the ounces keep coming: copper mine output was flat year over year, about 23 million tonnes, and silver mine output rose slightly, from 25,300 to 26,000 tonnes. A treatment charge at zero is a sign of stress between mines and smelters, not yet a sign of less metal.

So the two layers describe different things. Finished copper on exchanges is ample; the concentrate that feeds it is priced as scarce as the record shows. Copper is just the most-quoted of these charges, silver leans more on lead and zinc mines, where the same fees are harder to see. Either way, silver sits in that second layer, where the stress shows up first, even though total silver supply has not fallen.

Our bias, for the record: silver's supply is set in a market most of its investors never open, and that market is as stressed as the record goes, even while the ounces keep coming. That gap, a stressed pipeline and steady output, is the one worth watching. Almost nobody is.