Copper Price news, page-13

“Discovering and delivering a copper province of this scale, grade and outstanding ESG credentials, ahead of schedule and on budget, is a unicorn in the copper mining business,” Friedland said in a separate statement.The mining veteran noted that while the exploration journey started well over two decades ago, the Kakula deposit was discovered a little over five years ago.

“This is remarkable progress by the mining industry’s glacial standards from first drill hole to a new major mining operation,” he said.

Kicking off production at Kamoa is indeed a momentous event for the copper market. Most of the current top producing mines are decades old and, except rare exceptions such as SolGold’s Cascabel in Ecuador and Anglo American’s Quellaveco project in Peru, there haven’t been major new discoveries in years.

While copper projects are in the pipeline, producers are wary of repeating oversupply mistakes of past cycles by speeding up plans at a time when mines are getting a lot trickier and pricier to build — one reason why copper prices are near decade highs at above $4 per pound.

The copper industry needs to spend upwards of $100 billion to close what could be an annual supply deficit of 4.7 million metric tonnes by 2030, according to estimates from CRU Group. The potential shortfall could reach 10 million tonnes if no mines get built, commodities trader Trafigura has said.

https://www.mining.com/ivanhoes-kamoa-kakula-mine-starts-copper-production/