Peak Copper

If oil is the most important commodity, then copper cannot be far behind. Being used extensively in electrical power cables, electrical equipment, automobile radiators, cooling/refrigeration tubing, heat exchangers, artillery shell casings, optical fibre, water pipes, drain pipes, plumbing and even jewellery, this reddish-brown metal is a commodity that the world can ill afford to be in short supply of.

But the fact of the matter is that copper is yet another metal that is in a mining deficit that was predicted to be 700,000 tons in 2004 by the USGS 2005 summary.
That would be about 5% of the estimated 14.5 million tons produced worldwide. As a result, stockpiles have reduced and prices have increased to over the $2 a pound mark recently.

Against this backdrop, I was nevertheless surprised to read recent comments by Ross Beaty, the chairman of Pan American Silver and Lumina Copper, that global copper production was approaching its own version of “Peak Oil” or shall we say “Peak Copper”?

321Energy.com