President Putin formally commissioned the wet-process cathode copper plant at Udokan, one of the world’s largest copper deposits; the facility was rebuilt after a fire nearly three years ago. The plant will produce 99.99% cathode copper and is planned to lift the mine’s output to about 150,000 tpa; the company says a second phase under way could raise capacity to 550,000 tpa. The restart adds potential refined supply into a market that this year has seen trade-flow disruption and mine outages; L

President Putin formally commissioned the wet-process cathode copper plant at Udokan, one of the world’s largest copper deposits; the facility was rebuilt after a fire nearly three years ago. The plant will produce 99.99% cathode copper and is planned to lift the mine’s output to about 150,000 tpa; the company says a second phase under way could raise capacity to 550,000 tpa. The restart adds potential refined supply into a market that this year has seen trade-flow disruption and mine outages; LME copper is trading near record highs after a brief, severe delivery squeeze last month amid strong demand expectations from data centers and renewables.