The issue is twofold. Right now we are only really dealing with...

The issue is twofold. Right now we are only really dealing with the supply side shock. For too long majors like codelco and others have neglected critical capex and exploration budgets creating a perfect storm where they have to dig deeper for lower grade.

https://aheadoftheherd.com/copper-con/

This article highlights some of the specifics very well. As well as some of the manipulation on the metal trading side.

So from a supply perspective, massive amounts of capex need to be spent before new supply can come on. Even if something like cobre panama came back online magically, it's just not enough to meet the shortfall.

But as the article I linked also highlights, you have serious long term drivers on the demand side that will be going on until 2050. Even if only a few of these eventuate, you will still have a substantial increase in demand which will put even more pressure on the supply side.

What's going to need to happen is majors are going to need to learn that they need to start taking up mid range projects (or financiers need to get comfortable with mid range projects). There are not enough escondidas floating around.

If we are talking about this on hotcopper, far smarter people with better data already know about this and are going to be acting accordingly. This supports a higher long term price to create the right financing enviroment. I think a rising tide lifts all boats and loads of copper stocks are all going to come online, get absorbed by the demand increase and it will still remain very tight.

There are a lot of good mid range projects (like these marginal ones you speak of) in the world...but not that many in the western world and not enough to meet demand. So the exploration side will also have money thrown at it to find more. Problem with that is exploration historically sucks. It's not easy to find deposits, let alone large economically viable ones.

Not to cross promote, but something like "kalkaroo" as an example would be a project getting brought online in such an environment. How many of those can you think of off the top of your head?