Research
The sector is not short of opinions. It is short of published method.
Analysis of the system the company operates in, written for the decisions people are actually making.
Published
01
Latest insight, September 2026
What the new copper smelt and cast requirement records, and what it leaves out
On 31 August 2026 United States Customs and Border Protection gave notice that from 14 September an entry summary for certain copper articles will be rejected if it does not report where the copper was smelted and cast, with error F794 returned as fatal. The obligation dates from Proclamation 11021 of 2 April 2026, and the proclamation already attaches a duty rate to the answer: 50 or 25 per cent by annex, and 10 per cent where the copper was smelted and cast entirely in the United States.
What is enforced covers four tariff lines, all insulated wire and cable under heading 8544. Cathode, wire bar and rod are not among them, and the guidance permits importers to report the country of smelt as unknown. So the record measures where the copper inside certain finished conductors was smelted, not where American refined copper comes from. Every figure is quoted from the issuing document with its number and date.
Insight · Policy
What the new copper smelt and cast requirement records, and what it leaves out
From 14 September 2026 an American entry summary for four insulated conductor tariff lines is rejected if it does not name where the copper was smelted; the tariff schedule already attaches a rate differential of up to 40 percentage points to that answer, and the guidance permits importers to report unknown.
13 Sep 2026
Insight · Processing
What America's 45 per cent copper import reliance actually measures
The 45 per cent is a fraction made entirely of refined metal, so mine output never enters it; 57 of the 807 thousand tonne numerator came from stocks rather than trade, and 320 thousand tonnes of mine production left as concentrate.
2 Sep 2026
Study · Market
The 2026 copper forecasts agreed on the direction. The price went the other way.
Two independent forecasters called a small surplus. The price traded well above the range that surplus was expected to enforce, and the concentrate line underneath explains more than the balance does.
23 Aug 2026
Study · Processing
The United States mines more copper than it refines
Ten years of United States Geological Survey data on American refinery output, net import reliance, and where the world's refining capacity actually sits.
7 Aug 2026
Bbabsal publishes every week, alternating between a study and a shorter insight. Studies are investigation grade and carry their method and limitations. Insights are short notes on a development that has actually happened, with the evidence and the limits of it. Neither carries a price forecast. Ask to be told when we publish, or follow the research feed.
What is scarce in this market
03Better decisions need better information. In critical minerals the information is scarcer than the capital.
Large sums are committed against forecasts that disagree with one another, and the disagreement is almost never explained. Method is what would explain it, and method is what is almost never shown.
Bbabsal publishes analysis of the system it operates in, on the parts of it we have to understand anyway to build in it. It is written to be cited, argued with and checked.
01
Independent
Published because it is true, not because it helps.
02
Evidence led
Primary sources. Named authors. Dated evidence.
03
Open method
Method published so the conclusion can be argued with.
04
Policy facing
Written for a decision somebody is actually making.
We hold a position in our own conclusions, and say so. The answer to that is not silence. It is decomposing the numbers, dating the evidence, writing against our own book, and publishing the error rate.
What we publish
0401
Processing
What the ten year record shows about American refining capacity, import reliance and where refining moved.
Published
02
Method
What modern targeting can extract from a national airborne survey, and where the method stops working.
In preparation
03
Markets
Deficit forecasts disagree by a wide margin. The spread between forecasters carries more information than any single figure inside it.
Published
04
Policy
Which instruments have actually moved a plant from announcement to permit, and which have not.
Published
05
Geology
What a sedimentary province a century into its mining history still has left, and where the remaining discoveries are likely to sit.
Planned
Why this can be cited
05Sources
Primary, and named
Government statistics, filings and technical literature, cited so a reader can go to the source and disagree with our reading of it.
Authors
Named, with credentials
Nothing is published anonymously. The person who did the work is the person answerable for it.
Corrections
Published and dated
Errors are corrected in public with the date attached, so anyone who cited an earlier version can see what changed.