A procurement price is meaningful only when the buyer understands recoverable copper, impurity load, treatment requirement and delivery economics.
Buyers focus on how much usable copper can be recovered from the lot after moisture, non-metallics, attachments and processing losses.
Lead, tin, zinc, nickel, iron and other elements can affect furnace/refinery behaviour, product quality and treatment requirements. Which elements matter most is process-specific.
Well-prepared homogeneous scrap is easier to sample and process than a highly variable mixed lot. Consistency therefore has commercial value beyond average chemistry.
The buyer's processing route determines whether the material can be remelted directly, requires refining or is better suited to another plant. Treatment cost and expected yield influence the payable price.
Freight, insurance, finance, port cost, working-capital timing and claims risk can change the ranking of two otherwise similar offers.