"Copper Demand to Double over 30 years....Majors scramble for supply

I have just posted the first half of this report. Would like to hold a copper-belt stock.

Copper is surging, and the majors are out in force looking to shore up resources and take advantage of the market. But uncertainty remains around where supply will come from.

The copper price has more than doubled since April last year and M&A is picking up pace as majors like BHP forecast a doubling of copper demand in the next 30 years.

Double demand over 30 years. When you consider prices hit all-time highs and LME stockpiles fell to 47-year lows this year, that would be a serious trend to watch.

The LME copper price in 2021.

There was a lot of positive commentary out of the recent COP26 Summit in Glasgow surrounding copper’s importance to the clean energy transition.

One of the key takeaways from COP26 was the large amount of copper needed to help the world slash its emissions and restrict global warming.

Wood Mackenzie estimates an additional 19 million tonnes of annual copper production – a 60% increase – is needed by 2030 to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius. A whole lot more copper is needed again to further restrict it to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The infographic below says plenty. And that’s just the transport side of the equation.

Source: Copper.org

But the experts predict there aren’t enough mines in production or in development to come close to meeting this level of required supply.

This has prompted some extremely bullish price predictions, like New York-headquartered resources fund manager Goehring & Rozencwajg recently forecasting the price will go past $US10 a pound (+$US22,046/t). Earlier this year, the fund manager forecast the red metal might even test $US33,000 a tonne.