I think most people are not thinking large enough.
That could be the correct way to think.. small and depressing is often right, historically... blow outs are usually short lived and then nobody likes tulips for a long, long time..
On the other hand number crunching or consumptofantasy or anafantasy can be fun..
let's say 2 billion undifferentiated SE asiatics are not wearing wristwatches, do not own vast arrays of nickel kitchen ware, and 2000 lbs iron cars etc.. how much metal is this? And how long will it take to get it to them, such that they can afford it.. of course at 1500 dollar per year average salary how long sounds like a silly question.. we have to see massive inflation before they can afford it too.. unless copper sells for 20 cents in SE asia and 4 bucks here.. hard to figure how to rig that price scheme.. unless it is true that the generic foo-foo-buk is really worth 20 dollars
Now if we get to consumption it is easy to figure. frinstance in NA people consume 17 lbs of copper per year per person. They mean of course virtually or on their behalf that much is used.. So how much have they actually got now, in their possession and out there per person? It would have to be at least 50 years time average consumption so that would be 5 tons.. and asiatics without wristwatches have only half that amount obviously, so we have to add 2.5 tons Cu per asian to get started -- right?
So for copper alone we have to pump out 5 billion tons of copper to get even worldwide.. Well we don't have to, but let's give it some thot at least..
To make it easy, let's imagine all the SEA people go like all the NACT people .. never mind about the CT part, it's geopolitical. The chart of SEA consumption from now on will look like the one below from say 1920 to today. The blue chart below is of world copper 'consumption' from 1900 to present day.
Now to slightly overcomplexify the SEA people of course have to be started out population ajusted. Now SEA 1997 consumption is 5,000,000 tons per year which is more than NACT people, which we would divide by seven to pop adjust, to put them at roughly 1920 by the blue graph .. but of course the increase cannot be
So the obvious inference is that SEA consumption will increase, population adjusted.. relatively. so from 2000 to 14,000 or 7 times.. hmmmm.. can this be. Yes apparently SEA people now use 2.8 lbs where NACT people use 16.8 lbs p/p-p/y, so copper consumption must increase by hmmm what is 16.8/2.8? wairzmykalkulator, 6 times!!! how fast will that be? We woill must go to 30,000 metric tons per year EXTRA consumption... howlongwillthattake.. not 80 years.. as in 50 years SEA cons has increased 10 times, and the increase rate is increasing lately.. Asian growth is now 11 percent, not 3% of the copper graph below... My bet is 15 years.. but wairwilltheminescumfrum?
hmmmm Kidd Creek was a rare one and the Noranda camp suffers from great inertia, Raglan is not yet being ragged totally, NWT is very slow taking off, and BC is still asleep, but has LOTS of copper and cheap power too..
KC which has only been one in 20 years in Canada was 150 million tons, at 2.4% copper which is 3.7 million tons actual red metal.. but we will need 1.09 to the 10th X 5,500,000 tons (5.5 mill is SEA consumption today let's say) = 13,200,000 metric tons of copper per year for SEA people alone in ten years.. Or 3.5 Kidd Creeks per year!!!!!!
What does this mean..? Well, sleepy-headed investors with a nervous eye on every stock market hiccup, it means, "yooohoo, Chile, Hey, Pebble, say there NWT & Coronation Gulf, say, how about it, BC.. what about you guys over there in Montana, Peru.. how about some of that red metal and be right quick about it.."
It means just about EVERY copper porphyry in Yukon, AK, Mexico, and SEA will be dusted off and the BHP's and Xstrata's won't be enuff to keep up.. Let's get real SI people, you have seen the forest, now count the trees. Or is it you have counted the trees, now stand back and look at the forest.. and waddaya gonna do about it. I hate to be direct and maybe I am preaching to the choir, but it is time many of use gyze took a look at the reality of the Song of the 10,000 Cranes and realized it was time to harmonize..
And to change the subject, 18 billion tons of iron ore a gazillion miles to the sea and Peruvian iron ore deposits being to sound like a VERY good idea.. BTW -- Mexican sounding drinks that are IOC companies in certain Incan states may be going on the board at a kool 75 cents.. real soon at a broker in your neighbourhood..
Archaeological evidence demonstrates that copper was used as far back as 10,000 years ago for items such as ornaments in western Asia.
It is more than just a cave man ornament and have you looked at the price lately?
SEA, NA, Oceana, Copper consumption. Red is NA, Green SEA.
World Historic Copper Consumption. |
