Feeling good, feeling free – autonomy the key to happiness, says SFU study

Simon Fraser University

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If you can’t get no satisfaction, then maybe it’s because happiness does not only stem from pleasure or a meaningful existence. Instead, a new Simon Fraser University study suggests that freedom is the key to happiness.  

Researchers found that while positive feelings and pleasure are important, autonomy and the freedom to make your own choices is a better gauge of happiness.  

“People are not merely hedonists,” says Jason Payne, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Psychology.   

“When people step back and evaluate whether their life is going well, they consider more than their emotional balance sheet. They appear to ask themselves not just ‘do I feel good?’, but also ‘am I free?’” 

Unlocking the secret to happiness has been the subject of debate since time immemorial. Experts usually suggest that happiness stems from:   

• Feeling good (affective experiences): more pleasure and less pain means a better life. 

• Meaningful existence (flourishing): happiness comes from many factors, including good relationships, competence, virtue, autonomy, personal growth.  

The study, published in The Journal of Positive Psychology, sought to put these two schools of thought to the test by surveying more than 1,200 adults from Canada and the United Kingdom.  

The survey measured people’s positive and negative feelings, their life satisfaction and three psychological traits: autonomy – the feeling of being free to make choices; competence – feeling effective and capable; relatedness – feeling close and connected to others.  

Researchers then used advanced statistical modelling to determine what influences people’s satisfaction.  

Unsurprisingly, positive and negative emotions were strong indicators of happiness. But autonomy – the sense that you are free to make your own choices – was a better indicator of life satisfaction.  

“Even after accounting for how good or bad people felt, those who felt more autonomous were more satisfied with their lives,” says Payne.  

“Autonomy was the only psychological need that seems to contribute something that feelings alone did not explain.” 

Aside from challenging widespread assumptions about happiness, the findings also have practical implications for the workplace, as well as public policy, according to Payne.   

“Programs and interventions designed to improve well-being may succeed in improving feelings, but if they restrict people’s choices, then they could ultimately backfire and lead people to judge their lives as worse overall,” says Payne.  

“For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the obligatory facemasks may well have been in the public good, but by making them involuntary, perhaps that explains some of the backlash as they impinged upon people’s feeling of autonomy. 

“Policymakers looking to improve well-being should be mindful not only of potential direct outcomes, but also the second-order effects of not being free to choose the path to those outcomes.” 

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DOI

10.1080/17439760.2026.2651076 

 

Anabaena learns a new trick

Cyanobacteria surprise scientists with evolutionary shift

Institute of Science and Technology Austria

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image: 

Fluorescent Anabaena. Fluorescently labelled CorM filaments inside Anabaena. These represent a newly discovered cytoskeleton in multicellular cyanobacteria.

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Credit: © Loose group | ISTA

Photosynthetic bacteria helped shape Planet Earth. Among them are cyanobacteria that produced the oxygen in our atmosphere and made complex life possible, captivating scientists for decades. Now, researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) report a surprising new discovery—a system thought to separate DNA has developed to sculpt the shape of the cell in cyanobacteria instead. The results, published in Science, shed light on how protein systems evolve and how multicellularity emerged in this type of ecologically essential bacteria.

“Cyanobacteria are essentially pioneers of oxygenic photosynthesis,” says Benjamin Springstein, a postdoc in the Loose group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA).

“They are responsible for the Great Oxygenation Event about 2.5 billion years ago, when oxygen accumulated in the atmosphere and made aerobic life possible. Without them, it’s safe to say that none of us would be here today.”

Still today, these organisms remain vital by contributing significantly to global biomass production and playing key roles in carbon and nitrogen cycles. They thrive in some of Earth’s most extreme environments—from hot springs to the Arctic—and even  on roofs and walls on urban buildings. Among them is Anabaena sp. PCC 7120 (or simply Anabaena), a multicellular cyanobacterium that has been the subject of research for more than 30 years.

Working in the group of Professor Martin Loose in collaboration with the Schur group at ISTA, as well as the Institut Pasteur de Montevideo (Uruguay), Kiel University (Germany), and the University of Zürich (Switzerland), Springstein and his colleagues now show that Anabaena, and likely many other multicellular cyanobacteria, have undergone a major evolutionary shift, transforming an ancient DNA segregation system into a new cytoskeleton that controls cell shape.

DNA in bacteria: A brief primer

Like all bacteria, Anabaena reproduce by cell division, which requires precise replication and distribution of its genetic material. This genetic material—the DNA—is tightly packed into chromosomes, much like a wire around a spool. Often present in multiple copies, chromosomes must be reliably inherited during cell division for daughter cells to remain viable.

Bacterial DNA exists in two main forms: chromosomes, which carry genes crucial for survival, and plasmids that contain additional, often non-essential genes. Plasmids are especially mobile, as they can easily be transferred from one bacterium to another, allowing bacteria to rapidly acquire new traits and evolve swiftly.

A DNA segregation system—until it was not

Since 2014, Springstein has been captivated by Anabaena, exploring their evolutionary and molecular mysteries. When the COVID-19 pandemic brought research to a halt and laboratories closed, he turned to reviewing literature on the topic while writing a review and found something surprising that proved worth following up.

“I made a serendipitous observation,” he recalls.

He noted that Anabaena and some other select multicellular cyanobacteria possess a so-called ParMR system that is encoded on their chromosomes. This system is traditionally associated with plasmid segregation and was previously only found on plasmids—the bacteria’s mobile gene storage site. This observation made him hypothesize that this system might actively segregate chromosomes—and not plasmids—during cell division to ensure the proper maintenance of its DNA.

Springstein then later joined ISTA and the Loose group as an IST-Bridge Fellow to test this idea. However, his experiments told a different story. One component, ParR, for instance, could not bind to the DNA anymore; instead, it associated with lipid membranes, particularly the inner cell membrane. Rather than forming filament bundles in the cytoplasm to segregate chromosomes, Anabaena’s ParM forms filament networks just underneath the inner cell membrane to assemble into an array of protein polymers like a cell cortex.

In other words, instead of generating spindle-like cytoplasmic structures as expected for a chromosome segregation system, it appeared to function through membrane-associated organization.

Cells lose their shape

To unravel this mystery further, the researchers rebuilt the system outside living cells using purified components. In these in vitro reconstitution experiments, they observed that the filaments showed dynamic instability—they grew before suddenly collapsing during disassembly, a behavior well known from microtubules in eukaryotic cells.

To understand the structural basis of this behavior, the Loose group teamed up with the group of ISTA Professor Florian Schur and his PhD student Manjunath Javoor. Using cryo-electron microscopy—a technique that captures molecular structures at near-atomic resolution—the researchers examined the architecture of these filaments. Their discovery: Unlike the plasmid-encoded ParMR system in other bacteria, which forms polar filaments, Anabaena filaments are bipolar, meaning they can grow and shrink from both ends.

The functional consequences became quite clear when the system was removed from living cells.

“Cells lacking the system lost their normal rectangular-like cell shape and instead became round and swollen,” Springstein explains.

Similar defects are often seen in mutations of cell-shape maintenance genes in other bacteria, strongly indicating that this system plays a role in controlling cell morphology rather DNA segregation.

Reflecting on its newly uncovered function and their distinct location in the cell, the researchers renamed the system “CorMR.”

Four steps to a new function 

Multicellular cyanobacteria evolved from single-celled ancestors through a gradual increase in cellular complexity. Bioinformatic analyses by collaborator Daniela Megrian from the Institut Pasteur in Montevideo, Uruguay, shed light on how the CorMR system evolved—an adaptation that did not arise all at once but rather through a series of changes.

The transformation likely unfolded in four key steps: the system moved from a plasmid to the chromosome; its components changed in size and structure; new membrane-binding capabilities emerged, and the system came under the control of an additional protein system. Together, these changes turned an ancient DNA-segregation machinery into one that controls cell shape.

---

Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.aea6343 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Cells

Article Title

Repurposing of a DNA segregation machinery into a cytoskeletal system controlling cell shape

Article Publication Date

16-Apr-2026

Related News Releases

• Anabaena learns a new trick
  (Institute of Science and Technology Austria)

 

High-resolution image of CorM filaments in Anabaena. Green corresponds to CorM filaments while purple shows cyanobacterial photosynthetic pigments.

Credit

© Springstein et al. / Science

Down to the core. From left to right: When rebuilt outside of living cells, CorM forms dynamic filaments. Cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) image of purified CorM filaments. Successive zoom-ins show the reconstructed 3D electron density map of the CorM filament, followed by the corresponding atomic model, illustrating the filaments’ assembly into a bipolar double-stranded filament.

Credit

© Springstein et al. / Science

Louisiana Advances One of the Country’s ‘Cruelest’ Anti-Homeless Bills

One homeless advocacy group said the bill, which would require homeless people to perform unpaid labor to pay for involuntary treatment, “evokes debtor’s prisons, convict leasing, and the ugliest day of Jim Crow.”


A homeless woman sleeping with a dog on the street on February 26, 2020, in New Orleans, Louisiana.
(photo by Barry Lewis/InPictures via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Apr 18, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

The Louisiana House of Representatives voted this week to pass what the National Homelessness Law Center says is “one of the cruelest anti-homeless bills in the country.”

Like many other anti-homeless bills being advanced around the country following a 2024 Supreme Court decision allowing states and cities to criminalize homelessness, House Bill 211, which passed by a vote of 70-28, makes unauthorized sleeping in public spaces a crime.

It is punishable by a fine of up to $500, imprisonment for up to six months, or both. Repeat offenders could face one to two years in prison with hard labor and a $1,000 fine.

The bill, which will now advance to the GOP-controlled state Senate, has been nicknamed the “Streets to Success Act” because, according to its sponsor, state Rep. Debbie Villio (R-79), the goal is not to jail homeless people but to “connect them to service providers.”



Those who are convicted of sleeping outdoors could be given the option to avoid jail time by instead entering into a mandatory treatment program for at least 12 months. The bill authorizes local governments to set up semi-permanent camps in remote areas, where defendants would be required to stay and receive treatment.

The bill requires homeless defendants to pay “all or part of the cost of the treatment program to which he is assigned,” a steep cost for many, as the average cost for residential drug and alcohol rehab treatment in Louisiana is more than $4,400 per week, according to the addiction referral service directory Addicted.org.

According to the bill, those who cannot afford this steep cost would be required to perform unpaid labor for the state or a local community center in lieu of payment.

Bill Quigley, director of the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University New Orleans, called the bill’s entire premise “a farce.”

“If people had the resources to pay for housing and physical and/or mental health services, they would not be on the street,” he told Common Dreams.

He described it as a “cruel theater of the absurd” based on “the lie that people choose to be homeless.” The law, he said, “assumes our communities have plenty of affordable apartments and lots of mental and physical health services available.”

In reality, he said, these services are chronically underfunded, and the city would need to build about 55,000 more affordable rental units to provide enough housing for its rent-burdened population.

Though it is not uncommon for homeless people to struggle with mental health or substance use issues, increases in the cost of housing have been shown to have a direct relationship with increasing homelessness.

Homelessness in New Orleans dropped considerably in the years following the Covid-19 pandemic, when Congress provided permanent housing subsidies for those in need. But after those funds have dried up, homelessness in the city shot up higher than before the pandemic, a study by the homelessness nonprofit UNITY of Greater New Orleans found in 2024.

New Orleans City Councilmember Lesli Harris (D), who has opposed the bill, pointed to the success of the city’s Home for Good program, which took a “Housing First” approach to homelessness, providing rental subsidies and allowing people to move straight from encampments into housing without requirements that they obtain treatment.

According to a May 2025 report, the program had moved 1,133 people off the streets and into supportive housing and allowed eight homeless encampments to close.

“Through our Home for Good program, we house an individual for roughly $21,844 per year. By comparison, jailing that same person costs an average of $51,000—and failing to act at all can cost up to $55,000 in emergency room visits and crisis rehousing,” Harris said. “HB 211 would steer Louisiana toward the most expensive option while producing no lasting housing, no services, and no real path forward for the people involved.”

Harris has also decried the bill’s creation of what she called “internment camps” for treatment. The bill’s text requires these facilities to be far away from downtown and other high-value neighborhoods, which she said separates those trying to rebuild their lives from work, public transit, and other critical services, and further isolates them from society.

Since the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, which allowed cities to enforce public-camping bans against unhoused people even when shelter is unavailable, around two dozen states and hundreds of municipalities have passed various measures criminalizing poverty.

The homeless advocacy group Housing Not Handcuffs points out that many of the bills were written by the Cicero Institute, a far-right think tank with heavy backing from billionaire tech investors that now has deep influence over the housing policy of President Donald Trump, who has taken a hacksaw to funding for public housing programs under the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Housing Not Handcuffs said Louisiana’s bill, which would almost certainly be signed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry if passed by the state Senate, “is an extreme take on the already extreme copy-paste legislation” peddled by Cicero.

“This bill forces homeless people charged with a crime to make the false choice between jail or at least one year of forced treatment,” the group said. “Louisiana has a long history—and present—of chain gangs, prison labor, and entrenched white supremacy. This bill clearly evokes debtor’s prisons, convict leasing, and the ugliest day of Jim Crow.”

Trump handed 'historic indictment' as economy in worst shape since Eisenhower: analyst

Ewan Gleadow
April 19, 2026

RAW STORY



President Donald Trump has been handed a grim reality check with a poll suggesting his administration's economy is the worst in 74 years.

Political analyst Pat Ford, during an appearance on the David Pakman Show, highlighted how the economy had sunk to its lowest point in decades under Trump's watch. A 74-year low puts the Trump economy on the same footing as Dwight D. Eisenhower's economic forecast in the early 1950s.

Ford said, "American consumers have delivered their verdict. They feel this economy under Trump is the worst in 74 years. The results are a historic indictment of the current administration."

The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index fell to 47.6 in preliminary April 2026, a drop of 10.7% from March 2026. It is also the lowest reading in the history of the Consumer Sentiment poll. The prior record low came under Joe Biden's administration in 2022, which Ford explained was during a time when the United States had only just begun to recover from the Coronavirus pandemic.

Ford added, "There was also the start of the Russia-Ukraine war. This is immeasurably tied to Trump's decision to attack Iran because last month Trump was at 53.3, several points higher, now it's dropped 10.7%."

The results, Ford argues, put the US economy in a "more desperate light than even the 2008 financial crisis," but noted it does not mean the economy is "inherently worse" than 2008.

"It does mean that consumers feel the most dejected, that they feel the least confident this time since 1952. I think it is important to point out, especially because this has to do with how the public is feeling and we're only seven or so months away from the 2026 midterms, and people are going to be voting with their wallets.

"They're going to be voting based on how the economy is doing. And if Americans are saying that the economy is worse at this point than it has been at any point over the last 74 years, that's not going to be good for Trump, and that's not going to be good for Republicans. So you better believe that this economic sentiment is going to show up in the midterm elections."

UK

As oil giants reap super-profits from war on Iran, public support for Windfall Tax grows

Hub

Politicians calling for an end to the Windfall Tax should listen to the public, say campaigners, after new polling from Survation that found voters back the Windfall Tax by a margin of more than two to one, with support crossing party lines and stretching across all areas of the country.

Over half of the population say that ending the Windfall Tax now would be the wrong thing to do. Only 22% felt that it should be ended. And 41% of the public support the Windfall Tax on energy firms, compared to just 17% opposing it. 

Nearly two-thirds of the public believe that the energy industry is profiteering from the conflict in Iran and 47% believe that windfall taxes should be extended to more companies within the energy industry.

Meanwhile, 83% of the public are worried about rising energy costs as a result of the conflict with Iran, and 44% say they would be unable to afford the expected £228 annual increase in energy bills. A quarter of these respondents claim they would be “completely unable to pay my energy bill” if costs rose to this level.

Oil giants have said that they would consider investing more in the North Sea, which is now an ultra-mature and high cost basin, if the government removes the additional levy. However, recent history suggests oil companies will instead just give the extra profits to their shareholders rather than investing in more drilling.

The oil and gas industry has been engaged in a significant lobbying effort to have the current windfall tax – the Energy Profits Levy – repealed or ended early, securing support from some high profile politicians and parties. Both Reform UK and the Conservative Party have repeatedly called for it to be scrapped.

But support for the Windfall Tax continues among voters from all parties, according to the data from Survation.

Among those intending to vote for Reform UK in the next general election, 39% support the Tax with just 24% opposing it. For those thinking of voting Conservative, 44% still support it and 19% oppose it. 

Among Labour, Green and Liberal Democrat voters, support is even stronger – as is support for extending the taxes to other sections of the industry.

Backing for the Windfall Tax was also strong in all areas of the country, with people in Wales polling the strongest support for the levy. Earlier detailed polling in Scotland had shown 41% backing the Tax with 19% opposing it, but the new data suggests that this support has deepened with 44% now in favour of the Levy.

Recent figures have shown that the energy industry made £125bn in profits on their UK operations in the last 5 years and in the month since the conflict in the Middle East began, the share prices of energy companies have soared adding over £233bn to the market capitalisation of firms and resulting in a boost in the wealth of energy firm bosses. 

Simon Francis, End Fuel Poverty Coalition coordinator said: “This is not the moment to hand a tax break to the oil and gas industry and Ministers must hold firm with the Windfall Tax, while also examining any profiteering from the conflict among other sectors of the energy sector.

“Trump’s attacks on Iran, the damage to Qatari gas production and the disruption to supplies has led to spikes in the costs of heating oil and gas.

“But while households will feel the effects of this for months to come, the energy industry will continue to benefit from increased prices and a fresh wave of excess profits.” 

Robert Palmer, deputy director of Uplift said: “Politicians calling for an end to the Windfall Tax just as the oil and gas giants are about to make billions in bumper profits are tone deaf. Instead of siding with the profiteering oil industry, political parties should be standing up for billpayers who are facing a steep Trump Tax on everything from their energy bills, to petrol and food.

“Last time, when Russia invaded Ukraine, oil companies didn’t invest their windfall profits in more drilling, instead executives and shareholders got windfall payouts. The government needs to tune out the barrage of special pleading by the oil firms and their political cheerleaders, and focus on real solutions to this crisis. 

“The only way to bring down energy costs over the long term is to get off our reliance on oil and gas, and invest as fast as we can in renewables. More North Sea drilling will not take a penny off our bills, only boost the profits of fossil fuel companies.”

Labour MP Nadia Whittome agreed: “Drilling in the North Sea won’t make energy cheaper, despite what Badenoch or Farage say, because the price of gas is set by international markets. Expanding our clean energy supplies, on the other hand, would reduce our dependence on expensive fossil fuels and therefore lower bills. A Labour government must hold firm on our climate commitments and double down on renewables.”

Big profits for energy executives from Iran war

Drilling down into the figures, it’s clear that the bosses of some of Britain’s biggest energy companies have seen their personal fortunes surge by millions of pounds as a result of the conflict in the Middle East.

Analysis of shareholdings declared in annual reports and share price movements between 26th February and 27th March 2026 shows how energy chiefs may have benefited from the crisis, even as millions of households brace for a sharp rise in bills.

Among them, Harbour Energy’s Linda Z Cook saw the value of her shareholding rise by more than £4 million to £26 million. Harbour accounts for around 15% of the UK’s domestic oil and gas output and has been led by American Cook since 2021.

Meanwhile Shell’s Wael Sawan added nearly £1.8 million to take his stake to £13.2 million. At Centrica, Chris O’Shea saw the value of his shares rise by over £300,000, even as the British Gas owner’s boss told the BBC this month that higher household bills were “inescapable” and had previously said that it was “impossible to justify” his salary and rewards package.

At BP, interim boss Carol Howle saw her shares grow by over £500,000 during the period. Departed chief executive Murray Auchincloss, who held more than 1.8 million shares at the time of his departure, could have seen his stake rise to £10.6 million at current prices.

The picture is even more dramatic among the global giants whose share prices have been supercharged by the Middle East conflict. Chevron chief executive Michael Wirth saw the value of his near two-million-share stake rise by more than £44 million in a single month, taking his total holding to more than £312 million.

ExxonMobil’s Darren Woods added over £5 million to sit at more than £40 million, and TotalEnergies chief Patrick Pouyanné’s stake now stands at £39 million. Equinor, the Norwegian state-backed firm that supplies much of the gas the UK depends on, saw its shares rise more than 45%, adding nearly £700,000 to the personal stake of chief executive Anders Opedal.

Simon Francis again: “There are very few winners from the conflict in the Middle East, and most of those are the wealthy oil and gas bosses who help set the prices we all pay for our energy. Politicians must show whose side they are on: the households struggling with energy bills, or the millionaires calling for an early end to the Windfall Tax on North Sea profits.”

The figures come as wholesale gas prices remain at levels not seen since 2023. Average household energy bills are forecast to rise to £1,929 from 1st July 2026, an 18% increase on the current cap.

Separate End Fuel Poverty Coalition data shows that energy firms have already made more than £125 billion in profits on their UK operations since 2020. At current energy prices, the Government stands to collect substantial additional tax revenue via the Energy Profits Levy.

Caitlin Boswell, interim Deputy Director at Tax Justice UK said: “Different parts of the economy are set to make eye-watering paydays as they spot opportunities for profiteering from the US-Israeli war on Iran and immense human suffering, while ordinary people see their energy bills sky-rocket.  That’s why the Chancellor should urgently implement excess profits taxes on energy, defence and banking sectors – called for by wider civil society – to send a clear message that the UK won’t accept profiteering from war and crisis.

“This needs to be coupled with tax system reform that ensures the massive asset price rises, like stocks in energy companies, are taxed fairly. Failing to do so will see stock price explosions channel enormous sums of money to the pockets of the super-rich, while millions in the UK are made more vulnerable to the cost of living crisis.”

The full data also shows that 12 of the world’s biggest energy companies added more than £233 billion in combined market value in a single month. In the EU, a report commissioned by Greenpeace Germany suggests that oil companies are making €81.4 million in extra profits every day from skyrocketing fuel prices since the start of the war on Iran, or around €2.5 billion in additional profits for March alone.

Jonathan Bean, Fuel Poverty Action spokesperson, said: “The Government must act urgently to stop more obscene energy profiteering from war, which will leave millions unable to afford the essential energy they need.  Windfall Tax loopholes must be removed and fair wealth taxes introduced.”

The ceasefire won’t bring down bills

Oil share prices fell with the announcement this week of a ceasefire in the conflict – because a ceasefire is bad for profits. But could the fragile ceasefire bring domestic energy bills back down? Simon Francis was pessimistic: “The damage to household energy bills has been done. All households will feel the pain from 1st July when the next Ofgem price cap period starts. For as long as our energy system is hooked on oil and gas prices, history will keep repeating itself and our bills will be at the mercy of decisions taken by Trump, Putin and Gulf States.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said this week that he was “fed up with the fact that families across the country see their bills go up and down on energy, businesses’ bills go up and down on energy because of the actions of Putin or Trump across the world.”

But others suggested this was a cop-out. Labour peer Prem Sikka pointed out that energy costs were high even before invasions by Putin and Trump and that the “Ofgem pricing formula guarantees exorbitant corporate profits.” He added: “It can all be ended by nationalization.”

Sign the petition to demand higher taxes on companies profiteering from the crisis here.

Image: https://milestonemagazine.com/3-global-businesses-that-have-thrived-during-the-pandemic/ Licence: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported CC BY-SA 3.0 Deed

CU

Copper price within sight of all-time high as Chinese smelters hit record activity

Frik Els | April 18, 2026 | 

(Image courtesy of Glencore.)

Copper ended the week up more than 5% reaching a 10-week high at the close on Friday. At $6.11 per pound ($13,480 a tonne) in New York, May futures are back to within shouting distance of the all-time high closing price struck at the end of January, the day before the start of the Iran war.

The positive trend was underscored by new satellite data showing March smelter activity continuing to improve after hitting the lowest on record since tracking began nearly a decade ago in January this year.

Earth-i’s latest SAVANT Global Copper Smelting Index shows that 11.7% of global smelting capacity was inactive in March, down from 14.3% registered in January. Earth-i’s satellites cover some 95% of global capacity.

The increased activity was concentrated in China where the country-level inactive capacity sub-index fell by 1.1% to just 3.9%.

London-based Earth-i points out that together with the continuing build out of smelting capacity on the mainland, this resulted in an all-time high active capacity reading of 10.73 million tonnes, more than 775,000 tonnes higher than a year ago and 1.49 million tonnes above the 3-year average.

“This speaks to the improvement in downstream activity in recent weeks, as demand recovers following a ‘buyer’s strike’ in response to record high copper prices in January that has also seen imports from international market slump.”

Outside China, with the exception of Africa where the central copper belt showed strong operating performance, activity fell.

In Iran two smelters with combined capacity of 400,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) are offline (outside their historical routine maintenance schedules) and the ongoing outage at the 300,000-tpa Mount Isa smelter in Queensland, Australia, helped keep the Asia & Oceania regional inactivity sub index elevated at 18.7%, well above its 3-year average of only 5.7%.

According to Earth-i, inactivity did tick up modestly in Europe by 2.1%, but the region is still showing the lowest average percentage of idled capacity at 6.2%. Meanwhile smelting continues to be weakest in the western hemisphere, with the inactive capacity sub-index for North America rising by 10.3% in March to 32.3%, moving above that of South America at 27.4%.

Acid test

Chinese smelters’ willingness to buy concentrate increased further as sulfuric acid prices surged with FOB China at $210 per tonne in April, up 74% since January due to disruptions from the Iran war, according to a S&P Global Energy report.

This allows the country’s operators to secure short-term margins while putting additional pressure on TC/RCs (charges paid by miners to refiners). Spot TCRCs have plunged into deeply negative territory, with recent spot market tenders closing near –$78.50 per tonne and –7.85¢ per lb according to Platts, a unit of S&P Global Energy. That’s a swing from a positive $50 per tonne in January 2024.

The downward pressure on TC/RCs will remain, says S&P Global as the copper concentrate export permit for Indonesia’s Batu Hijau mine is set to expire at the end of April. In addition, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kamoa-Kakula 500,000-tpa capacity smelter began anode production at the end of 2025 which will consume domestically produced copper concentrate, further curbing exports.

The benchmark annual contract market has followed this collapse. Antofagasta’s 2026 benchmark agreement with a Chinese smelter settled at zero dollars, the lowest annual TC/RC terms ever recorded.

Codelco targets higher 2027 output to reclaim top copper spot

Bloomberg News | April 17, 2026 | 

Chuquicamata smelter. (Image courtesy of Codelco | Flickr.)

Codelco is targeting a slight increase in copper output in 2027 as Chile’s state-owned miner looks to reclaim the mantle of world’s biggest supplier of the industrial metal.

Total production next year is budgeted at 1.5 million metric tons, according to people briefed on the projections. The amount includes Codelco’s share of output from mines it doesn’t operate but holds minority ownership in. Production from its own mines is targeted to rise to 1.37 million tons from 1.34 million tons this year, said the people, who asked not to be identified because 2027 guidance hasn’t yet been published.

The company is striving to reverse a prolonged decline in output while getting its aging mines and delayed expansion projects back on track. Chairman Maximo Pacheco is eying a return to pre-pandemic levels of 1.7 million tons by the end of the decade when the global market is expected to tighten.

Codelco has overhauled management and decentralized project leadership to counter falling ore grades, cost overruns and a heavy debt load. Bloomberg Intelligence says Codelco is on track to displace BHP Group as the top global producer. BHP operates Escondida in northern Chile, the world’s biggest single copper mine.

“If Codelco manages to squeeze out a few more tons and Escondida’s grade does decline according to the mine plan, Codelco could take top spot again,” BI analyst Grant Sporre said.

(By James Attwood)

Codelco, Anglo pursue twin environmental approvals for shared Chile copper pit

Reuters | April 16, 2026 | 

Los Bronces is Anglos’s flagship mine in Chile. (Image courtesy of Anglo American | Flickr)

Chilean copper producer Codelco and global miner Anglo American plan to submit separate environmental studies to regulators for their planned shared copper mine in Chile, documents seen by Reuters show, using what they called an “unprecedented” twin-track to streamline the approval process.

The previously unreported documents on the Andina-Los Bronces project, presented to environmental authorities in January, show the companies plan in December to file two largely identical applications for a pit where they would jointly extract copper in the world’s top producer of the red metal.

Anglo American and Codelco strike $5B copper deal

The model could serve as a blueprint for other major miners seeking to share infrastructure and operations to raise output amid an expected global supply crunch, while setting up Codelco and Anglo American to move faster and cut down on risks.

Codelco and Anglo finalized the deal in September, planning to add about 120,000 metric tons of copper per year from 2030 to 2051, generating at least $5 billion in pre-tax value.

Codelco chairman Maximo Pacheco, as well as a source at Anglo American, confirmed to Reuters that the firms plan to file the two applications at the end of the year.

‘Mirror’ applications

In areas where operations will overlap, the companies proposed applying identical environmental measures to each miner.

A single filing was not legally viable, they argued, because Chile’s constitution requires Codelco to retain ownership of its mining concessions, one presentation showed.

The companies also considered filing three applications: one from each miner to extend the useful life of their respective mines, and a third from a joint entity that would run the shared operation.

They ruled that out because it would require the firms to give up their existing open-pit environmental permits to make way for the combined mine.

The dual structure would also allow the mines to potentially return to independent operations in the future.

Work on the ground

The documents detailed plans to create a single pit over the existing pits.

Anglo American’s Los Bronces and Codelco’s Andina pits are adjacent, and the companies’ plan showed the rock barrier between them would also be mined, creating a single operating pit while keeping the project largely within the mines’ existing footprint.

Ore extracted from the shared pit would be sent interchangeably to Los Bronces’ and Andina’s processing plants, while waste rock would be deposited in each company’s own waste dumps, one document showed.

Changes to waste dumps, tailings facilities, pipelines and support infrastructure would still be needed for the two mines to operate as an integrated system.

Shared infrastructure would avoid duplicate facilities, cut freshwater use and reduce pressure on the surrounding area, the companies said.

Risks to sharing a mine

The companies also flagged significant risks, such as the need for close coordination with regulators, which could strain Chile’s already slow-moving environmental review system.

They highlighted the project’s “high public visibility” and the risk that environmentalists and affected communities could argue the two reviews obscure the scale of the impacts.

Los Bronces has faced years of scrutiny by residents, regulators and courts over alleged impacts on air quality, water use and glaciers in the high Andes where the mine operates.

While Codelco and Anglo argue the dual-track approach would reduce the risk of underestimating impacts, they acknowledged it could lead to duplicate or unnecessary environmental management measures.

The firms plan to begin outreach to local communities and other stakeholders in the second half of the year, one document showed.

(By Kylie Madry and Fabian Cambero; Editing by Daina Beth Solomon and Mark Potter)

KGHM seeks copper mines closer to home to reduce logistics costs

Reuters | April 15, 2026 | 

Sierra Gorda mine in Chile. Credit: KGHM

Copper producer KGHM is looking to invest in mines in Europe and Morocco to secure ore supplies closer to its smelting base in Poland and lower logistics costs, the company’s CEO said on Wednesday.

KGHM, which operates the Robinson mine in the US and holds 55% in Sierra Gorda in Chile on top of its Polish assets, last month signed a memorandum with Morocco’s National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines and Moroccan mining firm Managem Group on cooperation in raw materials.

“We are looking for opportunities to have some resource closer to our smelting sites in Poland,” KGHM CEO Remigiusz Paszkiewicz told Reuters in an interview at the company’s Chile branch office in Santiago.

“Morocco is a good one. There is also at least one in Europe itself, an opportunity for us. We are now checking the chemistry of the deposit, let’s say,” he added, declining to identify which European company KGHM was looking at.

KGHM has dispatched geologists to Morocco and is waiting for an initial report from them, Paszkiewicz said, adding that the results could come in the next two weeks.

The Moroccan mine would serve as a source of supply to the global market as well as KGHM, he explained, as the company wants to remain active in concentrates trading. Just over half KGHM’s 710,000 metric tons of copper production in 2025 came from its own concentrates.

State-backed KGHM intends to maintain investment in Polish mining, even as it also looks at opportunities further afield in Chile and Argentina, Paszkiewicz said.

“But we see that the world is still changing,” he added, raising the possibility of switching KGHM’s Legnica copper smelter to a recycling plant.

“Probably it is … written down in the draft of our strategy that step by step we will be moving in the direction that Legnica is recycling and Glogow is our main smelting factory,” Paszkiewicz said.

KGHM will unveil its new strategy at the end of the quarter.

The company is also looking to extend its “production chain” in the United States, Paszkiewicz said, stressing that this did not necessarily mean building a copper smelter there.

(By Tom Daly; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

 

Codelco in talks with India’s HCL for Chile copper joint venture

Bloomberg News | April 15, 2026 | 

Chile’s Chuquicamata open pit copper mine moved underground last year. It was the world’s largest. (Image courtesy of Codelco via Flickr)

Codelco is negotiating a copper venture with India’s Hindustan Copper Ltd. as the Chilean state-owned miner turns to foreign partnerships to develop unexploited deposits, according to people familiar with the matter.

The deal under discussion is for a joint venture in which Codelco would put up one of its undeveloped deposits in Chile, with HCL taking on capital commitments, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing ongoing confidential talks. Investments would exceed $1 billion, they said.

Codelco “maintains multiple conversations and negotiations” on potential partnerships to develop a portfolio of exploration projects, the Santiago-based company responded when asked about talks with HCL. HCL didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Codelco, one of the most indebted global miners, is teaming up with foreign firms — including BHP Group and Rio Tinto Group — in a bid to drill deposits without adding to its already heavy investment burden as new projects get trickier and pricier to develop. At the same time, Chile’s new government under President Jose Antonio Kast is cutting red-tape and easing regulation in a bid to unlock investments in mining.

Codelco is turning more to India as a buyer of its copper. Indian companies, meanwhile, are looking to Chile, which boasts the world’s biggest copper reserves, to secure supply, integrate upstream and stay competitive in a tightening global market.

The prospective Codelco-HCL deal comes a year after both state-owned companies signed a memorandum of understanding during former Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s visit to India. The MoU focuses on exchanging information to facilitate exploration, mining, and mineral processing, along with employee training and capacity building.

(By Carolina Gonzalez and James Attwood)

Ivanhoe holds ‘captive audience’ on Congo sulphuric acid market, CEO says

Reuters | April 15, 2026 | 

Credit: Ivanhoe Mines

Ivanhoe Mines has a “captive audience” for its sulphuric acid in the Democratic Republic of Congo, its CEO said on Wednesday, as prices for the chemical soar on limited supplies due to the Iran conflict.

Vancouver-based Ivanhoe this year started selling sulphuric acid as a byproduct of copper smelting at its Kamoa-Kakula project to other mine operators on the DRC copper belt, which need acid to dissolve copper from ore in a process known as leaching.

Supplies from the key Middle East region have struggled to reach world markets, raising fears of a global sulphuric acid squeeze. The DRC alone has an acid market of about 2 million metric tons per year, Ivanhoe CEO Marna Cloete told Reuters on the sidelines of a copper industry gathering in Santiago.

“We just produced just over 100,000 tons in the first quarter, but that’s going to the likes of Glencore, to ERG (Eurasian Resources Group) … so it’s local distribution,” she said, adding that annual acid output would reach 600,000 to 700,000 tons once its smelter was running at full capacity.

“The local market is more than sufficient for us to sell to,” she added, noting that restrictions on exporting sulphur from neighbouring Zambia had stopped DRC companies from making their own acid. “We’ve got a captive audience in terms of our distribution,” Cloete said.

Ivanhoe said in a statement on Monday the Kamoa-Kakula smelter had ramped up to 60% of capacity, with a further increase constrained by a lack of concentrate feed.

The company’s price for high-strength sulphuric acid was around $500 per ton in the first quarter, with spot prices generally increasing over the three months, Ivanhoe said.

(By Tom Daly; Editing by Rod Nickel)