South America's Copper supply remains weak – Commerzbank

The Copper price has recovered slightly in recent days, Commerzbank’s Commodity Analyst Barbara Lambrecht notes.  

Production is expected to recover only by 3%

“Market reports point to an improved demand outlook. On the one hand, the Chilean Copper Commission (Cochilco) revised downwards its production targets for Chile, which remains the most important producing country. After Copper production fell to a 20-year low last year, the commission had forecast production of 5.5 million tonnes for this year.”

“Due to disappointing ore grades, production is now expected to recover only by 3% to 5.4 million tons. This is in line with the news that the state producer reported a drop in production of almost 11% in July, following an 8.4% drop in the first half of the year. Actual production in Peru also appears to be falling short of expectations.”

“The country, which is now only the third largest Copper supplier in the world following the rise of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is likely to fall short of its target of 3 million tons with annual production of 2.8 million tons, according to government estimates.”