Adani to start India’s largest copper smelter in Kutch within a month

While the smelter’s commissioning has already begun, the full-scale operation marks a strategic move to meet India’s surging copper demand amid its industrial and clean energy growth. Adani Enterprises Ltd is preparing to start a major smelter in India in the next four weeks that will refine copper concentrate, the company’s head of metals, Felipe Williams, said on Thursday. (10 April ’25) "In the next four weeks, we're starting the largest metallurgical complex of copper and other metals in the world," he said at a conference hosted by the International Copper Association in Santiago, the Chilean capital.

The smelting that will begin in the coming weeks at the facility, known as Kutch Copper, is part of a first phase, and the company has environmental approvals to increase capacity, he said.

The smelter's commissioning started a month ago, with the production of the first anodes, Williams said...Copper demand in India is expected to leap in the coming years as the world's fastest-growing major economy aims to meet the needs of its industries and the energy transition.

The smelter is coming online at a time when Asian smelters are running in losses due to a tight copper supply that has led to negative treatment and refining charges, known as TC/RCs. TC/RCs, a key revenue source for smelters, are a gauge of availability for copper concentrates used in the production of refined copper.  The challenges are big, because today the TC/RCs are negative numbers," Williams said. "We would have loved to start our business in a completely different environment, but we need to face reality, this is a long-term opportunity."

Copper and other base metals prices rebounded sharply on Thursday after U.S. President Donald Trump's administration paused for 90 days a series of tariffs on various countries.

Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME), which had been volatile, gained 3.8% to $8,939 per metric ton by 1615 GMT.