What price copper? EV's globally are eliminating any gap between supply and demand. Look at
www.kitcometals.com/charts/copper_historical_large.html#nymexstocks_30days where you can see COMEX warehouse inventories are heading straight down and LME inventories are at a 5 year low. Housing in China has been slow, and post covid is picking up. In China we see today: On February 23, the copper inventory under warrants in SHFE warehouses gained 6,196 mt from a day ago to 139,991 mt. meaning the sentiment is to be long copper in Chinaand inventory buildup after Chinese new year has slowed to a crawl. Today if you add the inventory of the three exchanges, it totals about 330,000 tons. While this is rather low by historical standards, the The Chinese-owned Las Bambas mine in Peru halted production on February 1, due to protests from workers and locals and there is no room for mine expansion. This may remain closed for along time. The mine is responsible for almost 2% of global copper production. (Over 440,000 tons a year). By March 15th, their delivery to the smelters in China will stop from the last ships leaving Peru 4 weeks earlier. Then, my prediction, is that the inventories in SHFE will vaporize a few weeks later when copper concentrate inventory on site at smelters that rely on from this mine. My pick for the earliest date of shortage is to start by April 15th. GS thinks the supply demand imbalance will be next year. I think it will be accelerated. Let's watch - will be fun.