“Take that copper!” ~ James Cagney, Angels With Dirty Faces,
Dir. Michael Curtiz; Warner Bros, 1938
In 2018, before the trade war between the US and China put the boots to copper demand, and covid-19 mine closures/ abandoned expansion plans crimped supply, we made a bold prediction: that copper supply is NOT going to be able to keep up with demand in the long-term. Here’s what we wrote, in The coming copper crunch:
Even with expansions at existing mines and the ramp-up of the relatively few new copper mines like Cobre Panama, Radomiro Tomic and Toquepalain, it will not be enough to meet the onslaught of demand that is coming from China as it continues to modernize and urbanize, and electric vehicles, which use three times as much copper as regular ones. In 2016 Chinese automakers sold 28 million cars. If China follows through on its promise to go 100% electric, that would mean 2,380,000,000 kilograms of copper. At the current production rate of 20 million tonnes a year, that’s 119 years worth of copper! Just to produce enough copper for electric cars in China.
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