Glencore chief feeds copper bulls with talk of ‘massive under-investment’ in new mines.
Thanks to its marketing and trading arm, Glencore has a better feel than most for what’s going on out there in commodity markets. And because of the confidence that comes from having a big stake in the company, Glencore boss Ivan Glasenberg doesn’t waffle on the subject like so many of the paid servants at other miners do.
Glasenberg was his adroit self when running through the commodity outlook at Glencore’s profit result call this week. The highlight had to be his thoughts on copper.
“We all know that demand for copper is going to go up, that’s the copper market today, around about 23m tonnes,” he said.
“If we get 2 to 3% demand growth around the world, depending on what happens in China, you’re talking about another 500,000 tonnes, 600,000 tonnes of copper being required per year.
“If you look at the supply, we all know there’s been a massive under-investment in new mines in copper.”
Glasenberg noted that the only new mine coming on was First Quantum’s Cobre Panama. “But besides that, there’s been a total under-investment in new copper mines,” he said
Makes you wonder if there is a second leg in the copper price rise to come sometime soon, and if the idea that the ASX-listed copper producers and explorers are indeed fully priced, as most pundits suggest, is on the money.
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