Blurb from an article in mining.com Drill or buy
The copper market got a jolt earlier this month when Robert Friedland, the founder of Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. and arguably the mining industry’s greatest showman, gave fresh details about the “mind-boggling” copper mine he’s building in Congo.
With financial support from Chinese backers Citic and Zijin Mining, Kamoa-Kakula will become the world’s second-largest source of copper within the next decade, Friedland said at the Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town.
The pronouncement should sharpen minds in the boardrooms of mining companies that have grown gun-shy on exploration and acquisitions since the downturn in the commodities supercycle.
There’s near-unanimous agreement among executives that the copper market will move into a deep deficit in the next decade, and the question is when will miners commit capital to filling the gap.