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INTERVIEW-China’s economic problems not serious, miner Antofagasta says – by Alexandra Ulmer and Fabian Cambero (Reuters India – April 7, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

SANTIAGO, April 7 (Reuters) – China’s economic problems are minor and are unlikely to trigger a crisis in the world’s biggest metals consumer, the chief executive officer of Chilean miner Antofagasta Minerals Plc told Reuters on Monday.

Copper prices fell to 3-1/2-year lows in March after a bond default by a Chinese company aroused fears about credit problems in the country. Prices have since steadied, though investors remain wary of slowing growth rates in the Asian giant.

Mining industry veteran Diego Hernandez, who used to head Chilean state copper producer Codelco and base metals at BHP Billiton, brushed aside major fears about the health of the buyer of 40 percent of the world’s copper.

“We think the Chinese economy is fairly solid,” he said during an interview in his office in Chile, the world’s top producer of the red metal, as part of the CESCO/CRU copper conference. “It may have some problems, but they’re minor.”

Still, the copper market could tilt into a small surplus if new and expanded deposits come on line as promised, Hernandez said. Contributing to that would be the London-listed company’s own production, as first-quarter output was on target, Hernandez said.

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Copper Titans Gather as Decade-High Glut Overshadows Earthquakes – by Matt Craze and Juan Pablo Spinetto (Bloomberg News – April 06, 2014)

http://www.businessweek.com/

The world’s strongest earthquake in a year and hundreds of aftershocks rattled the copper-rich Atacama Desert last week, forcing almost a million people to seek refuge from tsunamis. The copper market barely reacted.

The metal is down 0.6 percent in London since Anglo American Plc to Antofagasta Plc temporarily halted some operations after an 8.2-magnitude temblor struck on the evening of April 1. Investors’ indifference is explained by surging global output at a time of waning Chinese demand growth.

As tremors continue to shake northern mines, it will be the prospect of the biggest global glut since the so-called super-cycle began — and how miners are reacting by shelving expansions and shoring up balance sheets — that dominate discussion at the industry’s annual get-together in Santiago this week. Chile, the top producer, is opening three mines in a year, more than it has started in the past decade.

“Demand is not going to grow by the same margin, which is going to generate a significant surplus,” Alvaro Merino, head of research at Chilean mining society Sonami, said in an April 4 interview. “You are really going to see this increase in the second half of this year.”

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Copper price soars on Chile – by Dow Jones Newswires (The Australian – April 3, 2014)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

Copper prices soared before paring early gains to end only slightly higher Wednesday on news of a powerful earthquake off the coast of Chile, as most mining operations appeared to be unaffected.

Copper prices had a roller-coaster reaction to the news over the course of the global day. The 8.2-magnitude quake near Chile, the world’s largest producer of the metal, initially pushed up the three-month copper contract on the London Metal Exchange by more than 1 per cent to $6,728.75 a metric tonne.

The price quickly reversed before spiking again later in the day, as US traders began work, to $US6,734 a tonne, the highest since March 10. LME three-month copper closed the day at $6,680 a tonne, up 0.3 per cent from the previous day’s closing price.

In the US, the most actively traded contract, copper for May delivery, rose as high as $3.0740 a pound before closing up 1.1 cents, or 0.4 per cent, at $3.0455 a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Aluminium prices tracked copper, rising 1.5 per cent on the day to $1,823 a tonne.

“Concerns about China’s economic outlook overwhelmed short-lived fears of supply disruptions following the earthquake,” said analysts at RBC Capital Markets in a note to clients.

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World copper statistics 2013 (International Mining – April 1, 2014)

http://www.im-mining.com/

The International Copper Study Group (ICSG) has released preliminary data for December 2013 world copper supply and demand in its March 2014 Copper Bulletin. In 2013 world apparent use is estimated to have increased by 4% (805,000 t) to 21.2 Mt. World mine production is estimated to have increased by 8% (1.3 Mt) to 18 Mt. World refined production is estimated to have increased by around 4.5% (879,000 t) to 21 Mt. According to preliminary ICSG data, the refined copper market balance for December 2013 showed an apparent production surplus of 34,000 t as, despite strong Chinese apparent demand, refined usage was weak in major consuming regions during the yearend holiday period.

When making seasonal adjustments for world refined production and usage, December showed a production deficit of 57,000 t. The refined copper balance for the full-year 2013, including revisions to data previously presented (including a major revision to India’s refined usage series), indicates a production deficit of 193,000 t (a seasonally adjusted deficit of 337,000 t). This compares with a production deficit of 266,000 t (a seasonally adjusted deficit of 419,000 t) in the same period of 2012.

In 2013 world apparent usage is estimated to have increased by 4% (805,000 t) to 21.2 Mt compared with that in 2012. Chinese apparent demand increased by 7% from that in 2012: a decline in net imports of refined copper of 216,000 t (that occurred mainly in the first half of the year) was more than offset by an increase in refined production of around 675,000 t. Actual demand in China in 2013 may have exceeded apparent demand as the lower net imports level was accompanied by a decline in unreported inventories held in bonded warehouses in China.

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The Monumental Copper Disconnect – by Christopher Pollon (TheTyee.ca – March 28, 2014)

http://thetyee.ca/

Click here for the entire series about copper: http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/03/24/Travels-with-Copper/

Billions to mine, refine and assemble into products that last maybe a year or so? Last in a series.

LANGLEY, B.C. — Not long ago this industrial park was farmland: now it’s home to a virtual mine harvesting metal, plastic and glass from all the electronics British Columbians throw away.

For anyone who has ever disposed of a cell phone, hair dryer or appliance at a B.C. drop-off box, this is where some of it goes: a graveyard of sorts, where “end-of-life” products take the first step toward life anew. In any given month, a million pounds of “e-waste” comes through this plant alone.

Cindy Coutts is the President of Sims Canada, a subsidiary of the biggest urban “mining” company on earth. Walking through the Walmart-sized plant (which will double to 60,000 square feet this year), she grabs a printed circuit board the size of a coffee table book and holds it up. Gold and copper gleam against a green backing.

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Welcome to Peak Copper – by Christopher Pollon (TheTyee.ca – March 28, 2014)

http://thetyee.ca/

Click here for the entire series about copper: http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/03/24/Travels-with-Copper/

It’s not far off. So, why aren’t there more operations like this one in BC’s north? Fifth in a series.

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — The stretch of Highway 97 in the northeastern B.C. Interior between Dawson Creek and Fort St. John is an odd place for a two-kilometre traffic jam — until you consider that this roadway straddles a resource boom.

Gregg Drury is idling his pick-up on a July morning amid logging trucks, oil field suppliers and RVs, trying to get to the metal salvage yard he operates for ABC Recycling near Fort St. John. He’s doing a huge business these days buying all the metal discarded from old farms, local residents, and more than anything else, the oil patch.

“They’re generating incredible amounts of waste up here,” he says. “From pipelines, I get all that steel, but when they tear a plant down for instance, there’s lots of aluminum, stainless steel, and excess copper and wire.”

The metal salvage yard buys thousands of pounds of copper each day. It’s a tiny part of the business by volume, but huge in dollar value. Steel fetches about eight cents a pound, aluminum about 40 cents; copper, anywhere from $2 to 2.40.

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Cell Phones, Brought to You by BC Copper via China – by Christopher Pollon (TheTyee.ca – March 27, 2014)

http://thetyee.ca/

Click here for the entire series about copper: http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/03/24/Travels-with-Copper/

Home to Apple’s Foxconn plant, Kunshan is China’s Silicon Valley. But for how long? Fourth in a series.

KUNSHAN, CHINA — The kid standing outside the barbed wire fence at Unimicron’s electronics factory near Shanghai is feeling anxious. “Is the work hard?” he asks a middle-aged man, a private recruiter who brought the youth here.

The man tells him to relax. “It’ll be easy. Don’t worry.” It’s a Wednesday morning in September, and I’m standing with a crowd of recent high-school grads gathered to submit resumes at Unimicron, one of the world’s biggest electronics manufacturing companies, and a destination for copper mined 9,000 kilometres away near Princeton, B.C.

These kids are gathered here hoping to land an entry level factory job. High-school grads with no formal training are being offered up to CDN$680 (4000 Renminbi) per month to start, with medical insurance, room and board included (no tattoos allowed, see the translated job ad they are responding to here.)It’s a package that would have been unthinkably rich even five years ago, when Shanghai was booming as a low-cost workshop to the world, drawing millions of migrant labourers from across rural China.

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Where Copper Meets Fire – by Christopher Pollon (TheTyee.ca – March 26, 2014)

http://thetyee.ca/

Click here for the entire series about copper: http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/03/24/Travels-with-Copper/

Naoshima Island in Japan is a surreal melting pot of BC metal and fine art. Third in a series.

From the deck of a private ferry racing across the Seto inland sea, Naoshima Island appears as a tower of yellow rock on the horizon, tipped in a lush emerald. As we approach, blue-uniformed figures appear, darting in tiny vehicles around an imposing industrial complex bearing the red insignia of Mitsubishi, one of the world’s most powerful corporate conglomerates.

If this were a James Bond movie, Naoshima would be the island lair of an arch-villain. Instead it’s home to one of Japan’s oldest operating copper smelters, in almost continuous use since 1917. It’s also the first destination for the raw copper produced at the Copper Mountain mine near Princeton, and much of the rest of the copper mined today in British Columbia.

I came expecting Mordor, only to find the world’s oddest fine art display, with a 230-metre smokestack rising from the northern tip. In a surreal twist that is uniquely Japanese, Naoshima is also a world famous art gallery “park,” covering most of the island’s 17 square-kilometres. It’s home to three major art galleries featuring works by Pollock, Warhol and Monet.

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Betting at the Copper Casino – by Christopher Pollon (TheTyee.ca – March 25, 2014)

http://thetyee.ca/

Click here for the entire series about copper: http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/03/24/Travels-with-Copper/

That would be Vancouver’s mining district, where BC’s future is low-grade and high-risk. Second in a series.

VANCOUVER, B.C. — British Columbia copper ends up in smartphones, in the cars we drive, in our plumbing and electrical systems, as well as in our scrap yards and landfills. But to understand how it gets there, you need to visit a nondescript office tower on Pender Street in Vancouver’s financial district. Or perhaps more aptly put, Vancouver’s mining district.

If mining capital were mineral ore, Vancouver would be the mother lode of all mother lodes. More publicly-traded mining companies are headquartered here (and in Toronto) than anywhere else on earth: 60 per cent of all mining corporations on the planet are found in Canada. Their collective market value in 2012 approached half a trillion dollars: an estimated $449 billion. (See sidebar.)

Many in the mining industry view this global cluster as proof that we are the unrivalled masters of mining on the planet. This has some basis, but the reality is a lot more complex.

“The single largest reason for the concentration of head offices here,” says Alan Young, former executive director of the watchdog group Environmental Mining Council of B.C., “is that stock exchanges like the TSX Venture Exchange or TSX [Toronto Stock Exchange] have been developed to promote venture capital that mid-level and small exploration companies require to exist.”

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The Resurrection of Copper Mountain – by Christopher Pollon (TheTyee.ca – March 24 2014)

http://thetyee.ca/

Click here for the entire series about copper: http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/03/24/Travels-with-Copper/

PRINCETON B.C. — The “cradle” of this copper story lies here, about 300 kilometres east of Vancouver near Princeton, B.C., a boom-and-bust mining and logging town that by the late 20th century seemed used up and ready to die.

Between 1927 and 1996, some US$6-billion worth of copper had been dug from the mountains south of town, extracted by at least five corporations, now all long gone. What was left, most traditional assays concluded, wasn’t worth the cost of pulling out of the ground.

But by 2011, change was on the horizon, driven by both new technologies and distant market forces 9,000 km to the east (see sidebar). Under new management, Copper Mountain again began producing raw copper for export, putting 380 people to work full time, and supporting about 1,500 other jobs indirectly.

“I’ve died and gone to mining heaven,” Princeton town councillor Frank Armitage gushed at the mine’s official re-opening. A 40-year veteran of the industry, Armitage is now both Princeton’s mayor and Copper Mountain’s human resources manager.

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Travels with Copper (with INTERACTIVE MAP) – by Christopher Pollon (TheTyee.ca – March 24 2014)

http://thetyee.ca/

Click here for the entire series about copper: http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/03/24/Travels-with-Copper/

Tyee contributing editor Christopher Pollon criss-crossed the Pacific on the trail of BC copper. Here’s why.

I’m standing on top of five billion pounds of copper on a sunny August afternoon in southwest British Columbia near Princeton, trying to figure out where it all goes.

Dust and smoke rise, as explosives shatter seams of rock into moveable chunks 350 metres below me. Bungalow-sized Komatsu trucks (the tires alone cost $40,000 each) wind downward around the terraced edges of the pit toward North America’s biggest hydraulic shovel which can scoop up 80 tons of rock in a single bite. Deceptively toy-like from a distance, the moving parts of the mine perform their ritual 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “Mining on this scale is what makes it economical,” Don Strickland, Copper Mountain’s VP of Operations, tells me.

By last century’s standards, there’s not enough high-grade ore here to warrant mining it. But ever-bigger equipment and new processing methods have made it possible to move — and mine — mountains. With historically high copper prices over the last five years, and most of the world’s best deposits already tapped, Copper Mountain can afford to break and crush 150,000 tonnes of rock a day that will produce just 90 tonnes of refined copper down the road — and still make a profit.

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Takeover of Augusta would heighten concern over Rosemont’s promises – by Tony Davis (Arizona Daily Star – March 16, 2014)

http://azstarnet.com/

If Hudbay Minerals Inc. takes over Augusta Resource Corp., it will inherit far more than a massive copper mine site outside Tucson, a potential for huge production and profits, and an equally massive controversy.

It will face a truckload of legal obligations and commitments to mitigate and compensate for the mine’s environmental impacts. It will also face questions and concerns from the community about how real those commitments are — questions that don’t always have simple answers.

Over the past seven years, Rosemont Copper and its Canadian parent Augusta have promised verbally and in writing to carry out dozens if not hundreds of mitigation measures for the planned Rosemont Mine in the Santa Rita Mountains. Those commitments have mushroomed in number and scale as the mine has inched closer to final federal permitting decisions, which Augusta expects by June but which Hudbay has predicted will take much longer.

Toronto-based Hudbay is nearing the final stages of its Augusta takeover effort. On Friday, it extended the deadline for Augusta shareholders from Wednesday to April 2 to decide whether to accept the takeover bid.

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Copper miners eye increase in output – by James Wilson (Financial Times – March 16, 2014)

http://www.ft.com/home/us

Copper producers plan to expand mine capacity and output to record levels again this year, underlining potential additional downward pressures on prices, which have fallen steeply recently.

Prices for the red metal tumbled last week to the lowest level since 2010, amid signs of sluggish demand and the building up of inventories in China, by far the largest market for copper and most other metals. The copper market is closely watched as a gauge of global economic health.

Global copper miners – of which the largest are Codelco of Chile, Freeport-McMoRan, Glencore Xstrata and BHP Billiton – plan expansions of mine capacity that would add between 1.1m tonnes and 1.3m tonnes of copper annually to the market until 2016, according to data provider SNL Financial.

Such increases would be roughly equivalent to the annual output of Escondida, the world’s largest mine, which provides about 5 per cent of world supply.

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Estimate of Undiscovered Copper Resources of the World, 2013 (U.S. Geological Survey Fact Sheet – January 2013)

U.S.G.S.Map Final 600

http://www.usgs.gov/

Using a geology-based assessment methodology, the U.S. Geological Survey estimated a mean of 3,500 million metric tons of undiscovered copper among 225 tracts around the world.

Introduction

Informed planning and decisions concerning future mineral supplies, sustainability, and resource development require a long-term global perspective and an integrated approach to land use and to resource and environmental management. This integrated approach further requires unbiased information on the global distribution of identified and undiscovered mineral resources, the economic factors influencing their development, and the environmental consequences of their exploitation.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the principal Federal provider of research and information on nonfuel mineral resources, has completed a geology-based, cooperative international assessment of copper resources of the world. Collaborators in this assessment include mineral resource experts from national geological surveys and from industry and academia worldwide.

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Secretive Chinese funds: a potent force in copper rout – by Polly Yam, Fayen Wong and Melanie Burton (Reuters India – March 13, 2014)

http://in.reuters.com/

HONG KONG/SHANGHAI/SYDNEY, March 13 (Reuters) – Chinese funds taking massive short positions played a powerful role in copper’s slide to around four-year lows this week, signalling the growing force of the sector in global commodities markets.

The funds had been building up bets against copper since December, according to sources at funds, futures dealers and analysts, in a market already edgy over slowing Chinese demand and fears that credit upheaval in the world’s second-biggest economy could unwind financing deals using the metal as collateral.

On Friday, funds and other speculators pounced and sold London Metal Exchange and Shanghai copper contracts heavily as they took advantage of worries over the Chinese credit market after a bond default by a solar equipment producer.

The scale of the sell off shows that Chinese funds are gaining greater sway over global commodity markets — influence that is likely to grow given China’s intention to liberalise the yuan and pilot projects for free trade zones.

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