Copper supply will be extremely abundant in 2013

On December 27, according to data from the International Copper Research Group, the growth of global copper concentrate production capacity increased from the same period last year to 5% from 2013. By 2015, the annual growth rate of global copper concentrate production capacity soared to 11.5% year-on-year. Copper supply will be extremely abundant.

As China’s copper industry expands, supply is no longer strained. China's copper investment dropped slightly, but copper output maintained a relatively rapid growth. Data show that from January to November, the investment in fixed assets of the nonferrous metal mining industry increased by 20.63% over the same period of last year, reaching 136.965 billion yuan, which is almost the same as last year's growth rate. It is expected that the copper production in China will approach 1.7 million tons in 2012, an increase of 30.9% over the same period of last year.

The dependence on copper deposits remains high, and overseas exploration has increased. Although overseas copper resources are abundant, the domestic copper resources are relatively scarce and foreign dependence is very high. Data show that in October 2012, China’s copper imports reached 715,700 tons, while imports in November are estimated to further increase to 750,000 tons, so that the proportion of domestic copper mines to the entire copper supply fell to 18.3%, and the overall self-sufficiency rate remained unchanged. Low.

Excessive supply of raw materials led to an increase in processing fees. For the domestic smelting enterprises, there was no shortage of raw materials for copper mines in 2013, and their production capacity continued to expand. The increase in processing fees indicates on the one hand that there is sufficient supply of copper ore and on the other hand that the cost of smelting enterprises is reduced. In 2012, long-term processing fees for copper concentrates were maintained at US$60/ton to US$63.5/ton, which was 12.4% higher than 2011’s US$56.5/ton. It is expected that the processing costs for copper concentrates in 2013 are expected to increase by 20% this year to reach US$70/ton. It is expected that the peak of domestic copper smelting production will continue in 2013, and the production capacity may exceed 2012.

From the perspective of refined copper production, China's output of refined copper continues to set a new high. The data show that in November 2012 refined copper production reached a record high of 531,000 tons, an increase of 11.6% over the same period of last year. It is estimated that the output in December will reach 550,000 tons, so that the annual refined copper production in 2012 will reach 5.98 million tons.