From BHP...19 Sep 2023 16:01
Https://www.bhp.com/news/prospects/2023/08/bhps-economic-and-commodity-outlook#copper
Our confidence in medium term deficits is underpinned by both the demand and supply side, but if forced to elevate one over the other, supply headwinds would be the #1 motive force. Simply put, the supply response to supportive demand and price signals in the 2020s to date has been underwhelming, despite copper’s future-facing halo effect. And time is running very, very short to turn that story around.
It is quite apparent that there is a very substantial disconnect between what needs to be done at the macro level to support both rising traditional demand and the exponential lift in metal needs implied by the energy transition, and what is occurring at a micro level......
A primary focus on financing presumes that the projects are ready and waiting. The reality is that the industry’s collective set of development options is modest by comparison with prior decades, with the well–known lack of discoveries, the depth and complexity of what has been found, and the lengthening catalogue of above ground risks and regulatory hurdles that confront project developers all add to the challenges of bringing additional copper to end–users in a timely fashion. Technological progress can help at the margin to improve the productivity of existing operations, but the binding geological realities feel like the stronger force for this decade at least.
In closing for this chapter, we reiterate our view that the price setting marginal tonne a decade hence will come from either a lower grade brownfield expansion in a mature jurisdiction, or a higher grade greenfield in a higher risk and/or emerging jurisdiction. None of these sources of metal are likely to come cheaply, easily – or, unfortunately, promptly.