The price without metal specifies the price of the cable without the separately calculated metal content. A price without metal has a metal base of 0: meaning €0.00/100 kg.
The copper premium refers to the costs incurred to transform and deliver the copper ore into a usable format (a cathode).
The London Metal Exchange is the world's largest metal exchange for non-ferrous metals. The exchange determines daily worldwide reference prices in USD, which are included in the calculation of our metal prices, among other things.
The metal base price is the cable price agreed with the customer based on a hypothetical quotation (usually €150/100 kg for copper or €100/100 kg for aluminium). The use of the metal base allows for prices to be set without factoring in heavily fluctuating metal prices. For the actual price, the daily fluctuating metal surcharge is then added to the base price.
A metal agreement is a billing model for conductive metals agreed with the customer. It specifies on which days or over which time periods the metal price to be billed is fixed.
The metal number is a purely commercial calculation value for the metal content which is factored into the calculation of the full price of a cable. The metal number thus does not specify the weight of the conductor metal actually contained in a cable – even though frequently expressed as kg/km. It is merely a calculation factor, but one which does not allow for direct conclusions to be drawn as to the copper/aluminium quantity used in the cable.
The metal surcharge is the metal price by which the metal price determined by the metal agreement exceeds the base price.
The nominal cross-section is the cross-section specified in the documentation. This does not always tally with the actual conductor cross-section, but is a good basis for standardisation and billing. The electrically effective conductor cross-section for metal conductors is determined by measuring the electrical resistance (usually the DC resistance). Due to the different structures of the individual conductor types and additional processing influences, the result does not always tally with the geometric conductor cross-section determined by the nominal cross-section and the standard values of the specific resistances. It is therefore a nominal value which does not allow for conclusions to be drawn as to particular operational characteristics and usage options.
When a number is referred to as being "nominal", it means that it is an abstract specification. The number specifically stated may differ from the actual number, although a number designated as "nominal" describes a value which usually corresponds approximately based on standards and experience.
For cables, the full price is composed of the price without metal / the base price and the metal surcharge.