智利铜矿储量 智利庞大的埃斯孔迪达 铜矿企业面临增长挑战

智利庞大的埃斯孔迪达 铜矿企业面临增长挑战  

The giant Chilean Escondida mine produces more copper than anywhere on earth. Some 1.2m tonnes emerge from the BHP Billiton-run facility each year.
For the largest miners
Escondida also serves as a key measure for world copper output.
To meet global demand over the next decade
the industry “will have to add the equivalent of a new Escondida every 15 months”
says Jean-Sebastien Jacques
head of copper at Rio Tinto
which owns a minority stake in the mine. First Quantum
a mid-tier copper miner
says if China
India and Brazil reached EU levels of copper use by 2020
it would imply nine new Escondidas.
力拓(Rio Tinto)持有埃斯孔迪达的少数权益，该公司铜业务负责人让-塞巴斯蒂安•雅克(Jean-Sebastien Jacques)表示，为满足未来十年全球需求，铜矿业“必须每15个月就增加相当于一座埃斯孔迪达铜矿的产量”。中型铜矿企业First Quantum表示，如果到2020年时中国、印度和巴西的用铜量达到欧盟的水平，那就需要增加9座埃斯孔迪达。
Such predictions explain why big UK miners are talking up their growth potential in copper
even though worries over Chinese demand have driven the price of the metal to its lowest since 2010.
Both Rio and BHP believe the copper market is oversupplied now but will tighten from 2018
with growing deficits. “The copper story remains very strong
” says Mike Henry
BHP’s president for marketing.
Some of the UK’s pure-play copper miners are investing heavily in growth. Antofagasta expects to lift annual output from its Chilean mines from 700
000 tonnes last year to 900
000 tonnes by 2018. Kaz Minerals is building o mines in Kazakhstan.
For BHP and Rio
copper is especially important now that investments in sectors such as iron ore and coal appear to be ing to an end. Iron ore is heavily linked to Chinese infrastructure construction that is expected eventually to tail off
and coal could be threatened by changing environmental rules. Demand for copper is expected to be steadier: it has a wide range of applications and is forecast to be widely needed as the world’s largest economy shifts towards more consumer-led growth.
But the plexity and expense of projects means the larger miners may not be in a position to generate a quick acceleration of copper output.
Patrick Jones
an analyst at Nomura in London
says: “The major diversified miners all have sizeable copper businesses but they all have predicaments of one kind or another when it es to their future growth options.”
Escondida will suffer a dip in output in 2016 as BHP mines lower grade ores. Meanwhile
Bingham Canyon
Rio’s mine in Utah that has produced copper for more than a century
will cut output this year amid rehabilitation work.
Oyu Tolgoi
the other copper mine operated by Rio
has brought more problems. An expected underground phase of the mine has been delayed by a dispute with the Mongolian government. Rio wrote down the value of the project in 2013.
Rio took a step forward in December when President Barack Obama signed legislation that paves the way to build Resolution
a US copper mine expected to be one of the world’s largest. Rio owns 55 per cent of the project
with BHP owning 45 per cent.
Yet obtaining all the permits for Resolution could easily take Rio another five to seven years. “There is much work ahead to plete the regulatory approval process
” cautions Mr Jacques.
Because receiving approval for mines is so laborious
Rio and others have walked away from some projects
even if the copper resources involved are substantial. Since 2013 Rio and Anglo American have both given up on Pebble
a huge copper deposit in Alaska that is controversial for its potential effect on fisheries
for example.
Another challenge for miners is the expense involved in building mines. Glencore
the world’s third largest copper miner by annual output and larger in copper than any of its diversified rivals
sold its Las Bambas project in 2014 to MMG
a subsidiary of China’s Minmetals
for about $7bn. MMG said in October that the remaining 25 per cent of construction would cost beeen $2.7bn and $3.2bn.
Those are the sort of sums that mining panies know shareholders dislike. Glencore is unwilling to build projects and most other miners are trying to
find lower-cost development routes. BHP
which owns Olympic Dam
an
Australian mine
abandoned an expansion plan in 2012 because of the likely cost. The pany is set to take several years to test an alternative
cheaper processing method. It is doing something similar at Spence
a smaller Chilean project.
“All the miners are keen on copper because they all see the market returning to deficit in a few years
but they are trying to be smarter about execution and capital efficiency
” says Mr Jones. “Some of the miners are at a fork in the road: should they grow in copper and how can they do it smarter?”