There has been a couple of interesting articles over that last...

There has been a couple of interesting articles over that last 48hrs or so talking about the future of the copper market (see below). For those of you holding RBM you should be able to sleep easy at night knowing that the previous forecast for a huge surplus is well and truely being scaled back and in fact some people are saying that in 2008 the supply and demand will in fact be back in balance and that is without any supply shocks.

The benefits of this information is as follows for RBM:

-Obvious cash flow benefits from copper production
-increased spotlight on copper producers and explorers
-Smaller producers become takeover targets from suppliers and country's wanting to secure supplies
-RBM phase 2 expansion due to commence from 3rd quarter which is the same time as the forecast peak this year for copper prices ( see article below )
-Drilling program to increase attention towards RBM
-over the last year copper has not been the sexy metal it was over the last couple and exploration budgets have been spent more on Nickel, Uranium, Gold, Iron Ore, so some large scale production expansions have been put on the back burner due to other metals being considered more profitable. Thus increasing the importance of smaller scale producers to fill the gap.
-if you believe what Heggarty from Oxiana said "its not stronger for longer", "it is stonger forever" in regards to the commidities boom, there is still huge profits to be made from small scale miners such as RBM.

When you add just a few of these items together it shows the potential of RBM. For those that are worried about the short term downside don't, see it as a chance to top up your holdings. For once the market has shaken out all the day traders and rights issue holders it will set sail higher with much focus on the company in the 2nd and 3rd quarters for those how can be patient enough.



The following article are taken from Bloomberg,Kitco Metals, Reutuers

The global refined copper market was in a 220,000-metric-ton deficit in 2006 but will reverse this to be in a surplus of 164,000 tons in 2007, according to a report released Thursday by independent consultancy Bloomsbury Minerals Economics, or BME.

By 2008, this surplus should slip to be 10,000 tons, but because there will be a rise in metal in transit, there will in fact be a small commercial deficit, BME said.

The surplus in copper emerged in October last year mainly due to a surge in secondary refined production and a double-digit decline in U.S. consumption as the housing market there slowed, BME added.

This was then compounded by continuing very weak refined consumption in China during the "closing phase of that country's de-stocking of copper and copper alloy semi-manufactures," BME said.

"The result was an above seasonally normal build-up of Chilean port stocks and to a lesser extent a build-up of exchange stocks," BME added.

In December, Chinese refined consumption began to dramatically recover as de-stocking of semis ended, although copper ran into the quiet holiday period.

Currently, exchange stock growth has slowed almost to a halt, and Chinese premiums have been "high for long enough to have begun to draw stocks from Chile."

"Thus we would guess that the most volatile elements in global cathode stocks turned collectively neutral or into tiny deficit in February and that March will see a clear stock drawdown," BME added.

Refined copper production in 2007 is seen at 18.16 million tons, with refined consumption of 18 million tons.

"Of the 160,000-ton difference, around 80,000 tons will go into increases in material in transit, around 20,000 tons into the normal growth of producers' essential working stocks," BME said.

"Provided prices stay around today's levels, we would expect a partial rebuilding of consumer stocks to absorb much of the remaining production-consumption difference rather painlessly," the report added.





LME copper hits highest since early Jan
Fri Feb 23, 2007 4:17 PM GMT
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By Daniel Magnowski
LONDON (Reuters) - London Metal Exchange copper
traded on Friday at its highest since January 2, while tin slipped
from its highs on signs of increased suppply from Indonesia.
LME copper was at $6,231.5 per tonne at midsession,
up $96.5 from the previous close, after prices surged $345 on
Thursday. It hit an intraday high of $6,242 earlier.
"It is just a matter of someone wanting to push it up," a
trader said.
The move lacked a fundamental trigger, but the break of
technical resistance at $5,950 sparked buying.
"Once it went over $5,950 the people who sold it because it
was range-trading started buying again," the trader said.
At $6,231.5, copper is up over 18 percent from its recent
low of $5,260 on February 6 but remains around 30 percent off its
record high of $8,800 touched in May 2006.
JP Morgan technical strategist Robin Wilkin said in a weekly
note that copper prices looked likely to head back towards
$7,500/8,000 at the end of the second quarter.
UK metals consultancy Bloomsbury Minerals Economics said in
a report it expected copper prices to remain at these levels
until the end of 2008 as growth of exchange-held stocks was seen
slowing.