{"id":745957,"date":"2018-06-05T20:50:49","date_gmt":"2018-06-05T20:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=745957"},"modified":"2018-06-05T20:50:49","modified_gmt":"2018-06-05T20:50:49","slug":"copper-price-soars-to-3-month-high-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=745957","title":{"rendered":"Copper price soars to 3-month high"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Frik Els<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

\"Copper<\/a><\/div>\n
\n

Production at Escondida began in 1990 and peaked in 2007 at more than 1.4 million tonnes of copper. Image: BHP<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Copper jumped 3.7% in New York on Tuesday to trade at $3.25 a pound ($7,165 a tonne), the highest since end-February, as worries about supply disruptions in key producing region resurface.<\/p>\n

Workers at the Escondida copper mine in Chile put down quite a marker in the third round of contract negotiations with part-owner and operator BHP.<\/p>\n

The union is demanding a one-time bonus equivalent to 4% of dividends distributed to BHP shareholders in 2017.<\/p>\n

That works out to about $34,000 per worker. It would be the biggest bonus payout to mineworkers ever in Chile.<\/p>\n

The union also wants a wage increase of 5%, which is more than double the inflation rate in the South American nation.<\/p>\n

\n

Source: Company reports, MiningIntelligence, Wood Mackenzie. Notes: Annual copper production 2017 except Codelco’s El Teniente and KGHM Poland operations = 9 months 2017 annualized. KGHM Poland consists of Rudna, Polkowice-Sieroszowice and Lubin mine complex. Reserves as at end-2017 except KGHM, Codelco mines at end-2016. Grasberg reserves include Block Cave under development and undeveloped Kucing Liar deposits.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

BHP has until next Friday to respond, but after two rounds of failed talks, the reception of the proposals is likely to be cool.<\/p>\n

BHP has spent some $8 billion over five years to maintain output above one million tonnes<\/q><\/p>\n

Due to its size, Escondida can on its own change global copper supply dynamics.<\/p>\n

BHP, which owns 57.5% of the mine, has spent some $8 billion expanding the mine in the past five years to maintain output above one million tonnes (2018 guidance is 1.18\u20131.23mt).<\/p>\n

That means Escondida is responsible for nearly 5% of the world’s primary copper supply.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the copper industry’s annual gathering in Santiago in April, Colin Hamilton of BMO Capital Markets summed it up this way:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cPut in simple terms, at more than 300kt Escondida’s planned output recovery in 2018 will be the second largest year on year gain by a single operation in recent copper history, after Las Bambas in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo have such reliance on a single operation for copper supply growth, particularly one with a history of output hiccups, clearly comes with some risk.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"These<\/a><\/p>\n

Source: Company reports, MiningIntelligence, Wood Mackenzie. Notes: Annual copper production 2017 except Codelco’s El Teniente and KGHM Poland operations = 9 months 2017 annualized. KGHM Poland consists of Rudna, Polkowice-Sieroszowice and Lubin mine complex. Reserves as at end-2017 except KGHM, Codelco mines at end-2016. Grasberg reserves include Block Cave under development and undeveloped Kucing Liar deposits.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Last year’s walkout lasted 43 days and ended only when workers invoked a legal provision that allows them to extend their existing contract by 18 months (to end July).<\/p>\n

The 2017 strike at Escondida was the longest in Chile since the 74-day action at state-owned Codelco’s El Teniente mine in 1973, which took place shortly before the military coup that overthrew socialist President Salvador Allende.<\/p>\n

The threat of copper supply disruptions due to a slew of labour contract negotiations in top producers Chile and Peru, boosted prices at the beginning of the year.<\/p>\n

The majority of those talks quickly ended in deals.<\/p>\n

There is little indication of that happening at Escondida.<\/p>\n

The post Copper price soars to 3-month high<\/a> appeared first on MINING.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

…read more<\/a> <\/p>\n

From:: Infomine<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Frik Els Production at Escondida began in 1990 and peaked in 2007 at more than 1.4 million tonnes of copper. Image: BHP Copper jumped 3.7% in New York on Tuesday to trade at $3.25 a pound ($7,165 a tonne), the highest since end-February, as worries about supply disruptions in key producing region resurface. Workers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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":[360],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745957"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=745957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745957\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=745957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=745957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=745957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}