This from yesterdays Freeport (FCX) Earnings Conf CallJeez ! Sounds like they were quoting Friedland from a few years back, eh ? ;-)
The copper business, mining business is a tough business, but it was political issues in some countries, community issues and then operating issues. As a result of all that, inventories of copper around the world are at historically low levels and the inventory levels are really inconsistent with the current copper price. The copper price clearly being driven by macroeconomic factors. The currency, the strong US dollar, carryover effects of inflations, government fiscal policies, and there are concerns about economies in China and Europe. But if the macro outlook -- and I'll just say when the macro outlook improves, watch out for the copper price. Looking ahead, the world's going to need significantly more copper in the future for a variety of factors.
The world's just becoming increasingly electrified and that's what copper is used for. And it's at a time when the industry is simply not investing to grow production that the outlook indicates that will be required for economic, operational and resource nationalism, a series of factors, but the facts are there's an outlook for strong demand and supply challenges.