Analysis of copper flows in China from 1975 to 2010

• An analytical framework is established for characterizing copper cycles in China.
• Copper flows of the specific years 1975, 1985, 1995, 2005 and 2010 are quantified.
• The utilization pattern of copper resource is illustrated.

By applying substance flow analysis (SFA), the paper attempts to illustrate how copper utilization pattern has changed in the anthroposphere of China from 1975 to 2010. An analytical framework is firstly established and the detailed copper cycles of the specific years 1975, 1985, 1995, 2005 and 2010 are then characterized. Major conclusions include the following: (1) Chinese copper industry has made significant progress driven by large domestic copper demand since 1970s, especially after 1990s. Also the structure of copper industry has shifted from a basic industry to a processing industry. The share of secondary copper production in total refined copper has risen from 20% in 1975 to 38% in 2010; (2) the Chinese society has experienced a rapid copper accumulation since 1990s. The annual input flow to use stage jumped from only 334 Gg (that is 0.36 kg per capita copper consumption) in 1975 to 7916 Gg (5.90 kg per capita) in 2010; (3) a large amount of copper has to be imported to meet the huge demand, mainly involving in copper concentrate, refined copper and copper scrap. And the NIR (Net Import Ratio) of the three was 53.0%, 38.7% and 63.0% in 2010, respectively; (4) domestically produced copper scrap increased from 74.5 Gg in 1975 to 711.2 Gg in 2010. Comparing it with import scrap and domestic new scrap we found that at current stage the in-use stock is still too small to generate high quantities of copper scrap for domestic secondary copper production. (5) Major copper losses occurred through copper Mining, Refining and WM&R, with the Mining exhibited the lowest copper utilization efficiency (CUE) among the three processes, and may have the great potential for increasing copper utilization rate in China.