Moffit also had this to say on CNBC. Looks like am emerging bull market in resources in general. It is a supply side problem.
Partial transcript of CNBC interview with Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold (FCX) Chairman and CEO James Moffett (Jan. 18/01):
CNBC Interviewer: Do you see the price of copper going lower?
JM: No, copper’s not going to go down from here, I don’t believe, and the reason is that copper’s been so low in the past years.
I just heard a lot about the natural gas crisis you were talking about. The copper supply in this world, now listen to this, we have three weeks copper supply and we only have a few big mines that are providing it and the supplies of copper have fallen this year and have fallen to all time lows. And we have people out there talking about slowdown. . . copper is a world market! You’re going to sell it in Asia, Europe, United States, South America. And it’s an infrastructure metal.
CNBC Interviewer: Point well taken supplies are tight but do you see supplies meeting demand? Or is going to start to decline there?
JM: Absolutely, we don’t think it’s going to be declining. All of the people in Asia are just coming out of their recession and Asia is where all of the copper is ((built)), it was in an infrastructure boom and there was over $100 billion a year being spent in Asia until Asia got into their flip. They’ve been in their flip since 1997. So the United States is a very important issue, but look what’s happening in Europe. The Euro dollar is starting to strengthen. People are saying Europe is going to be better than the United States. Remember copper is sold as a world product. It doesn’t depend upon the U.S. economy or the Asian economy. There is only a few supplies of this around. We’ve got three weeks’ supply. Everybody better look at this. Because just like people didn’t care that we didn’t have enough natural gas reserves, they said, “Well, everybody always cries wolf”. They’re going to find out that when you switch to a product that there’s no substitute for, when you do away with nuclear energy and you do away with coal and you do away with oil, people are going to pay whatever it takes because there’s no substitute. Copper is the same kind of metal. It’s an infrastructure metal. People aren’t going to stop building buildings and houses and communications. The Western world forgets that the third world countries of the world are totally undeveloped. Russia has got to be completely developed. Copper is an infrastructure metal and we’ve got three weeks supply left in the world. And when copper goes to $3 or $4 everybody’s going to say, “Well nobody told us that. Well, Jim Bob’s telling you today that you’ve got three weeks left.
CNBC Interviewer: Point well taken, Mr. Moffett, good to see you again.
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