R.F. and Kamoa-Kakula mentioned.
Apr 21, 2021
World Economies Need to Find a Lot More COPPER! :: The Market Oracle ::
A looming copper shortage has end users worried about their supply chains.
Speaking with Rick Rule at this year’s Sprott Natural Resource Symposium, mining magnate Robert Friedland said, “The copper price probably needs to double its current price for the average low-grade copper porphyry in Peru or in Chile to become viable.”
That, by the way, would mean copper hits 8 bucks a pound.
Billionaire Friedland, whose Ivanhoe Mines is developing the huge Kamoa-Kakula copper project in the DRC, also stated, at the CRU conference, that copper has become so crucial, finding enough of it has become “a national security issue”.
Bloomberg reports Friedland saying mining companies will have to be “real heroes” and governments will have to accept the industry if the world is to successfully transition to clean energy and transport.
Snowdon, of Goldman Sachs, points to the collapse in treatment and refining charges, that miners pay to smelters, as evidence of an undersupplied copper market. He predicts global mine supply will peak from 2024 onwards, and that market fundamentals will generate “a record long term supply gap by the end of the decade that has to be solved by investment in new mine capacity.”
Snowdon also points out that the current 8 million tonnes supply gap is close to double that of the last bull markets in the early 2000s and 2010s, agreeing with Friedland that, “This can only be resolved by higher prices stimulating investment in new supply.”