When copper prices go up, the global economy is in good health—that correlation goes by the name of Dr. Copper. It all boils down to the usage of copper in large infrastructure projects. Recent developments, however, have demonstrated that Dr. Copper is obsolete. The oldest metal has hit record prices in the last two years, in spite of China’s economic hurdles. Beijing is the world’s largest copper consumer, and its property crisis was supposed to significantly affect demand. Where is the catch then? Renewables. “Even with tepid economic growth in areas like Europe and China, copper consumption continues to grow at attractive rates due to the push for renewable energy,” points out the CEO of Capstone Copper, John MacKenzie. MacKenzie is confident that copper prices will remain high, as the metal is essential for solar and energy installations, as well as EV batteries.
Essential as it is for the green transition, copper supply in the future may be scarce. “There have been no significant recent copper discoveries, and the pipeline of new projects is shrinking. The opportunities are becoming
smaller, and the timelines for bringing new projects online are getting longer,” confides Kathleen Quirk, the new CEO of Freeport-McMoRan. Quirk believes in the power of new technologies to address the potential supply gap. “We are revisiting previously mined stockpiles, where ore that was once considered unrecoverable can now be efficiently processed using advanced technologies. This approach allows us to increase pro- duction at a low incremental cost and with a minimal carbon footprint, as the material has already been mined,” she illustrates.
Another example of innovatively producing copper comes from Amerigo Resources. The company specializes in the production of copper through the processing of tailings from the El Teniente mine in Chile. Amerigo’s CEO, Aurora Davidson, says that miners are yet to appreciate the oppor- tunity coming from tailings: “Tailings are the waste material from the mining process, often seen as an environmental responsibility rather than an opportunity. Companies manage their tailings responsibly, but traditionally, tailings are considered waste after the economically viable metals are extracted.” Changing our way of viewing tailings can be one of the answers to future supply shortages, not just with respect to copper.