Knowledge
Call-off contracts: securing cable and taking it in phases
When it pays to secure a batch, what belongs in the contract and what the copper price has to do with it.
Under a call-off contract a batch is produced against an agreed volume and you take it in phases, invoiced per call-off. That fixes your price in a market that moves, and because a year’s volume is produced in a single run, the price is usually more competitive than with separate orders. We cut to length per call-off, so you are not tied to fixed drum lengths. The term, the volume, the types, the sizes and the agreement on the copper price belong in the contract.
Under a call-off contract a batch is produced against an agreed volume and you take it in phases. The cable is always ready when you need it, and we invoice per call-off rather than all at once.
It solves two things: availability and price. Construction schedules often slip. With a call-off contract that does not matter: the cable is ready and you call it off when the work is ready for it.
An installer on a long-running project does not want everything on site at once: drums standing outside for weeks get damaged, get in the way or go missing. Under a call-off contract the batch sits with us and each phase brings what you need. And because we cut to length per order, you are not tied to fixed drum lengths: each call-off comes in the lengths that suit the route at that moment.
For a wholesaler or OEM with repeat purchasing it works differently. There it is not one project but the same types coming back again and again. The benefit is certainty: availability is secured and you do not have to wait for a lead time on every order. And the cable is stored with us, so it takes up no space in your own warehouse.
The copper price is where the conversation usually starts. Copper is quoted daily on the LME; our copper price page shows the current quotation. On a contract running for months you can fix that price at signing. Fixing it is the strongest argument at the moment: raw material prices move and that is hard to predict, so a fixed price means you know what the cable costs in your estimate, whatever the market does in the meantime.
There is a production side to it as well. Commit to a year’s volume at once and it can be produced in a single run, which is more cost-effective than twelve separate orders spread over the year. That saving is reflected in the contract price.
A contract like that also covers the term, the total volume and the types and sizes.
For the buyer: a call-off contract does three things at once. It fixes the price, it secures availability, and it is usually more cost-effective because the volume is produced in a single run. If you know of a project running over several months with the same types throughout, or of a yearly volume that is going ahead anyway, start the conversation at the estimating stage. Signing a call-off contract at the point where the first delivery should already have arrived does not work.
Does a project run over several months, or do you take the same types every quarter? Send the types, the sizes and the volume you expect over a year, and we will put a proposal together.