"With the 2024 calendar year upon us, we have updated our expectations for short–term supply–demand balances (where a surplus means rising inventories and a deficit means inventories running down). We now see refined copper in deficit and a very tight situation in copper concentrate (solid Chinese end–use demand, a reduced drag from the West, the abrupt closure of Cobre Panama and other operational shortfalls, new Chinese smelting capacity coming online), which is considerably better than expected six months ago, when a moderate refined surplus seemed likely. "
