Why copper and aluminum cable do not price the same

Two different questions

Copper and aluminum lots are not priced on the same facts, even when they sit on the same rack in the same bay. Copper is priced mostly on metal content, because the recovery value of the conductor is large enough to carry the lot by itself. Aluminum is priced mostly on whether the cable is still usable, because the metal in it is worth little per foot and the freight to move it is not.

That difference explains why a clean aluminum reel and a clean copper reel of the same size do not track each other. One is a metal trade with a reusability premium attached. The other is a cable trade with a metal floor under it.

Conductivity and what it does downstream

Copper is the reference for conductivity at 100 percent IACS. Aluminum sits near 61 percent, so an aluminum conductor needs roughly one size more to carry the same current. That single fact shapes everything after it: larger conduit, larger lugs, larger bend radii, and terminations that must be listed for the metal in hand.

Aluminum also behaves differently at a lug. It oxidizes within minutes of being exposed, so it needs an oxide-inhibiting compound and a connector rated for aluminum rather than a generic one. It creeps under a terminal and loosens through thermal cycling, which is why aluminum connections get re-torqued and why a used aluminum cable with the lugs cut off is harder to put back into service than the same cable in copper.

Mixed metal on one rack

A surplus rack is usually mixed, and the mixing is rarely obvious from a distance. Aluminum phase conductors sit in the same families and the same jacket colors as copper. ACSR carries a steel core inside aluminum strands, so a magnet settles it. Copper-clad aluminum looks like copper until the end is cut and the silver core shows.

Then there is ordinary housekeeping damage: a copper reel leaning against an aluminum reel, tags swapped by a crew clearing a bay, a pallet built from whatever was nearest the door. If a lot is offered as copper and arrives mixed, the correction happens on the scale, and the seller absorbs it.

How to separate them

Work through each reel the same way. File or scratch the cut end and look at the metal: copper is red-orange, aluminum is silver-white. Read the jacket print, because many constructions print AL or ALUMINUM, and copper ones print COPPER or CU. Run a magnet over the conductor and the armor. Check pounds per foot against the printed size if the reel can be weighed.

Then palletize by metal, label each pallet, and put the count per pallet on the manifest. A buyer who knows that pallet three is eight aluminum reels and pallet four is six copper reels can price both without opening anything.

• File the cut end before you trust a color seen from across the bay
• Read print for AL, ALUMINUM, CU or COPPER
• Magnet test for steel core, interlock and armor
• Weigh one reel and compare with pounds per foot for the size
• Label pallets by metal and count them on the manifest

What to send on a mixed lot

Send a photograph of a cut end from each metal group, the print from one reel in each group, and a count of reels and estimated footage per metal. If any reel is ACSR, copper-clad or has a copper concentric neutral over aluminum phase conductors, name it, because those are the reels a buyer will ask about first.

Getting the split right before the truck is booked is worth more than any argument afterwards. Metal that is sorted is priced. Metal that is mixed is discounted and then sorted anyway.