the Leicster Property and copperComment: Advancing Copper assets
Copper (Cu) is known to be a leading metal when it comes to price movements both on the upside and downside of the metals cycle. Over 32 months ago, it was trading at US$0.65/lb with London Metals Exchange (LME) inventories at over 800,000 tonnes. Strong demand and moderate supply capacity, due to years of exploration cut backs and mine development constraints, quickly resulted in erosion of copper inventories. LME warehouses today hold about 34,000 tonnes of copper metal. The copper rose, however, will lose its bloom and our forecasts suggest that we could be close to “peak of cycle” copper prices. That being said, we expect that increased sustained demand led by China could result in elevated copper prices in the short term and thus, an extended period of exploration and development activity in the base metal mining sector. Longer term, there is evidence of considerable mine closures and declining production that should lead to strength in the copper market and investor interest in companies advancing quality copper assets.