Tech advances will bolster long-term copper demand

Subject The copper market. Significance The copper price has picked up by nearly 9% this year after weakening unexpectedly through 2018, losing 17.5%. Unusually, the slide was accompanied by metal inventories dropping steadily on the London Metal Exchange, Comex and Shanghai Metals Exchange. Stocks peaked at 900 kilotonnes (kt) in March 2018 before plummeting by 65% to start the year at the lowest since 2014. This rare combination of falling inventories and weakening prices has yet to find a viable explanation. Impacts Zambian import duties on concentrate has prompted 366 kt of capacity to be shutdown, reducing supply on the market. Boosting the outlook for US output, the US Environmental Protection Agency has approved Hudbay’s 112-kt-per-year Rosemont mine in Arizona. Chilean miner Codelco is spending 4.9 billion dollars to mine underground at Chuquicamata, aiming to extend operations by 40 years. Indonesia, the ninth largest copper producer, is to redirect output towards local smelters; it has cut annual export quotas by 25-75%.