Demand for refined copper has been steadily rising for more than a century. The International Copper Study Group (ICSG), an intergovernmental organization that serves to increase copper market transparency and promote international discussion on issues related to copper, estimates the demand for copper in 1900 was 495,000 metric tonnes. Come 2006, demand had increased to more than 17 million metric tonnes, with an average growth rate of 4% per year.

Today, three commodity exchanges trade in copper: the London Metal Exchange (LME), the Commodity Exchange Division of the New York Mercantile Exchange (COMEX/NYMEX) and the Shanghai Metal Exchange (SHME). As far as the western markets go, the LME trades copper in 25-tonne lots quoted in US dollars per tonne and COMEX trades it in 25,000-pound lots quoted in US cents per pound.

The international copper price has been increasing rapidly since the beginning of 2008, fuelled by growing global demand for the metal. The price of copper hit a record high March 6, 2008 on the London Metal Exchange (LME), jumping 5.8% over the previous trading day to close at US$4.02 a pound. Prices have cooled slightly since then, hovering around US$3.75 through May 2008.

As far as exploration is concerned, 56 new copper discoveries have been made in the last 30 years, with discoveries peaking in 1996. Copper’s chief producers are Chile, the United States, Indonesia, and Peru. Many large copper mines will be exhausted come 2015.

Based on 2006 figures for per capita consumption, Tom Graedel and colleagues at Yale University calculated that by 2100 global demand for copper will outstrip the amount extractable from the ground, bringing into the public domain discussions around peak copper.

Finally, analysts bullish on copper’s fundamentals point to two phenomena: China’s rapidly growing hunger for resources, and the second wave of the green revolution, appearing of late on the radar of business everywhere and bringing with it new technologies, many of which take advantage of the versatility of the red metal.

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