Copper13 Feb 2023 07:27
Excellent article from ahead of the herd…..
“……. despite copper exploration budgets increasing by 21% last year, the most since 2014, on the back of higher copper prices compared to the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, they have not led to a meaningful increase in the number of recent discoveries.
“While copper reserves and resources have increased by 50 million tonnes compared with our analysis last year,” the authors say, “most of the increase came from assets discovered in the 1990s.”
This statement is significant, because it jibes with the conclusions drawn by Wall Street investment firm Goehring & Rozencwajg Associates, regarding the mining industry’s practice of lowering cut-off grades.
S&P Global Market Intelligence estimates that new discoveries averaged nearly 50Mt annually between 1990 and 2010. Since then, new discoveries have fallen by 80%.
Greenfield and brownfield reserve additions are expected to disappoint through the decade, according to a 2021 report by Goehring & Rozencwajg.
The Wall Street firm believes the number of new world-class discoveries coming online this decade “will decline substantially and depletion problems at existing mines will accelerate.”
Also, geological constraints surrounding copper porphyry deposits, a subject few industry analysts let alone investors understand, will contribute to the problems, the report said.
https://aheadoftheherd.com/sp-report-on-copper-supply-is-misleading-richard-mills/
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