Copper supply is going to be tight in coming years. A lot of the new copper sulphide deposits being discovered are deeper and lower grade. Hence will have higher development costs than simple open cut operations. Even the viability of copper leaching pad needs improved economics, the right ore type, right environment-climate (minimal rainfall), large scale pads to justify their production rate existence.
Copper price needs to be significantly higher to encourage these new mines to start-up. Otherwise, they will remain on the drawing board with no development happening.
Future copper demand is coming from AI (data centres), EV's (cars, boats, buses, aircrafts, drones, etc), urbanization and electrification of society. This is not going away. It is an early adoption phase for EV's but their penetration rate is increasing with more and more models coming to the market. Even Perth is building & rolling out 130 electric buses for its future transport requirements.
