Exposing the copper surplus mythhttps://www.mining.com/web/exposing-the-copper-surplus-myth/
Commodity analysts predictions are usually wrong about copper supply, often predicting a glut in the market for the ubiquitous metal used in everything from piping and wiring in houses, to components of electric vehicles.
Elusive surplus
In 2022, copper mine output increased by 4% to 21.9 mln t and refined copper production by 1% to 24.6 mln t. Global refined copper consumption totalled 24.8 mln t.
When the International Copper Study Group (ICSG) met last October, it was expecting a market surplus of 155,000 tonnes in 2023. In May, the group changed that to a 114,000-tonne deficit.
The first thing we notice from this statistic is its relative small size. In a total copper market of 22 million tonnes, we had an immaterial deficit of 114,000 tonnes, considerably less than 1% of the overall market. Can anyone really claim to be so accurate as to predict the amount of surplus or deficit to within the equivalent of less than a 1 tonne in a hundred? What is basically a rounding error? It seems highly unlikely.
But for the sake of argument, let’s say the ICSG’s deficit forecast for 2023 is correct. What accounts for the missed target?
Reuters’ metals columnist Andy Home points to two strands in the current copper narrative. One is that China’s copper usage is growing faster than previously forecast. Second is that mine supply has once again failed to live up to expectations.
The ICSG reports China’s apparent usage of refined copper is expected to increase by 1.2% this year and 2.4% in 2024. Usage growth in the rest of the world is anticipated to beat last year’s 0.4% pace @ 1.6% this year, surpassing pre-covid levels, according to the ICSG.
The group contends that despite challenging macroeconomic conditions, “manufacturing activity is expected to continue rising in most of the key copper end-use sectors”.
The more interesting numbers relate to mine supply. When the ICSG met last October, it expected global mine production to surge by 3.9% in 2022 and 5.3% this year. At the time of Home’s article, in May, the group thought mine output growth last year was 3%, and it cut its forecast to 3% this year.
Remember, new copper supply is concentrated in just five mines — Chile’s Escondida, Spence and Quebrada Blanca, Cobre Panama and the Kamoa-Kakula project in the DRC.
Home references four of them, all except the biggest copper mine in the world, Escondida @ 1 million tonnes per year, as supply additions that have been ramping up simultaneously.
However, the expected wave of new supply is being offset by multiple hits to existing operations.
The ICSG cites as reason for its lowered mine growth expectations “operational and geotechnical issues, equipment failure, adverse weather, landslides, revised company guidance in a few countries and community actions in Peru”.
The Group and every other copper analyst include a supply disruption offset in their mine supply forecasts but the past six months have been particularly problematic even by copper’s historical standards of mine under-performance.