Market Survey on Copper - Indian Bureau of Mines

Chapter 4. Foreign <strong>Market</strong>
Since the dawn of new millennium the trading of copper has gathered
momentum in the international market. The reason behind this was the brisk
movement in the world economic activity supported by the improvement in the
industrial production of most of the developed and developing countries. The heavy
electrical industry and the telecommunication industry are the two sectors which
triggered the demand of copper metal globally. Chile, Australia, USA, Indonesia etc.
were the dominating countries in the trade of copper ores & concentrates, metal and
alloys.
4.1 WORLD RESOURCES
As per the Mineral Commodity Summaries 2011, the world reserves of copper
(in terms of copper contents) were 630 million tonnes. About 50% of these reserves
are located in Chile, Peru, Mexico and USA. Chile has the largest reserves of 150
million tonnes, accounting for 24% of the total world reserves followed by Peru
(14%), Mexico & USA (6% each). The remaining reserves were located in Poland,
Australia, Indonesia, China, Zambia, Russia, Canada, Kazakhstan etc. The country
wise reserves of copper in terms of metal content is given in Annexure: 4 - I and also
depicted in Figure: 4.1.
4.2 WORLD PRODUCTION OF COPPER ORE
4.2.1 World Mine Production of Copper
In the last 21 years, mine production of copper in terms of metal content has
almost doubled from 8.8 million tonnes in 1988 to 15.8 million tonnes in 2009.
Copper is produced in about 50 countries. Five countries namely Chile, USA, Peru,
Indonesia and China contribute about 62% of the world's total production in 2009.
Each of these five countries produces nearly one million tonnes of copper every year.
Country-wise mine production of copper in terms of metal content from 2003 to
2009 is given in Annexure: 4- II and also shown in Figure: 4.2. The world mine
production of copper which was 13.70 million tonnes in 2003 increases to and 15.80
million tonnes in 2009. The overall increase from 2003 to 2009 was 15.36 per cent.
Chile continued to be the largest producer of copper. The mine production in
Chile was 5.39 million tonnes in the year 2009 contributing 34.11% of total world
mine production of copper followed by Peru (8.03%), USA (7.59%) Indonesia
(6.30%), China (6.08%) and Australia (5.50%).
World Production of Copper Ore
There are a number of countries producing copper ore. The leader in copper ore
mining is Chile followed by Indonesia, Russia, Peru and USA. The list of top 10
copper mines with their capacities is given in Table: 4.1. The list of Copper Smelters
and Copper Refineries along with their capacities is given in Tables: 4.2 and 4.3
respectively. A comprehensive worldwide list of copper producing companies,
copper producing countries, worldwide list of copper smelters, and worldwide list of
copper mines are given at Annexure:4- XV, Annexure:4 - XVI, Annexure:4 -XVII
and Annexure:4 -XVIII.
The details of important copper mines in the world is given at
Annexure 4-XIX.
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