Copper market balance under pressure: We've seen more supply...

Copper market balance under pressure: We've seen more supply disappointments and disruptions in recent months.
- Production at Codelco, the world's top supplier of the red metal, fell 10.1% to 107,300 metric tons in March.
- There was another strike at MMG's large Las Bambas copper mine, one of the largest copper mines in South America.
- Glencore's copper production fell another 2% last quarter and has been declining for more than 4 years.
- Copper production at Antofagasta, a major copper miner in Chile, was 129,400 tons in Q1 2024, 11% lower than in Q1 2023.
- Anglo American lowered its 2024 output target for copper to between 730,000 tons and 790,000 tons, from as much as 1 million tons, essentially removing the equivalent of a large copper mine from global supply. Production will fall even further in 2025, before starting to rise again the following year.
- KGHM Group, a large copper miner from Poland, reported lower than planned copper production.
- With smelters in Asia hungry for the red metal, the copper concentrate market turned from surplus to deficit.
- Still closed: One of the biggest supply disruptions was the government-ordered closure of one of the world's largest copper mines, First Quantum's Cobre Panama, which contributed over 330,000 tons of production in 2023.
- Global copper inventories were close to 30-year lows in terms of days of demand. This underscores the upside risk to the commodity price given the increased pricing power it gives producers.