{"id":1141996,"date":"2019-10-03T17:34:03","date_gmt":"2019-10-03T22:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1003560"},"modified":"2019-10-03T17:34:03","modified_gmt":"2019-10-03T22:34:03","slug":"lower-for-longer-copper-price-puts-squeeze-on-marginal-miners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1141996","title":{"rendered":"Lower for longer copper price puts squeeze on marginal miners"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The price of copper weakened again on Thursday amid the worst US factory conditions in a decade and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/web\/copper-trapped-between-faltering-supply-and-weak-demand-opinion\/\">near-record bearish bets<\/a> on futures markets on the bellwether metal.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In afternoon trading in New York, copper for delivery in December was trading just off its low for the day of $2.538 a pound ($5,596 a tonne), bringing losses for 2019 to more than 5%.<\/p>\n<p>Trade worries have dogged copper price bulls for the better part of a year, but more recently weak data from China, the US and Germany, together responsible for 70% the world\u2019s consumption, have intensified the sell off.<\/p>\n<p>While there is near unanimous consensus that copper\u2019s long term prospects are bright (particularly under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining-journal.com\/copper-news\/news\/1372635\/-greta-scenario-means-usd20-000-t-copper-says-bernstein\">a Greta Thunberg scenario<\/a>), a lower for longer price is likely to cull the industry of marginal producers \u2013 those in the 90th percentile of costs.<\/p>\n<p>In a new report, BMO Capital Markets slashed its forecast for the copper price for next year by 9.6% to $2.93\/lb ($6,460\/t) and by smaller margins through 2023. The investment bank kept its long-term equilibrium price for the orange metal steady at $3.25\/lb ($7,165\/t).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>BMO calculates at current prices, some 10% of copper mines around the globe are operating at a loss (while nickel extractors can\u2019t believe their luck \u2013 see graph).<\/p>\n<p>Apart from longer term trends like falling grades at mature mines, metals consultancy CRU estimates weakness in prices for metals mined as a byproduct \u2013 particularly cobalt \u2013 has added roughly $290 per tonne this year. Without higher gold and silver prices, upward pressure on costs would have been even more intense.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/bmo-marginal-copper.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/bmo-marginal-copper.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1003595\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/bmo-marginal-copper.jpg 592w, https:\/\/www.mining.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/bmo-marginal-copper-300x291.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 592px) 100vw, 592px\" \/><\/a><figcaption>Source:  BMO Global Commodities Research \u2013 Commodity Price Update: Industrial Headwinds<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New report shows 10% of global copper miners are in lossmaking territory amid falling price and higher costs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2849,949,369],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141996"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1141996"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1141998,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1141996\/revisions\/1141998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1141996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1141996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1141996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}