Kitco News - Large investments in copper projects show that miners are optomistic about the metals long term prospects, notes mining audience manager Michael McCrae.
On Saturday McCrae recorded an episode of Roundtable.
Copper had another down week, with its second consecutive drop. Copper futures were down 1% to end at $4.37.
Big copper investments were announced this week, despite the metal's weakness.
Reuters reports that copper miner Freeport Indonesia launched its $3.7 billion copper smelter in Gresik, East Java. The smelter’s total input capacity is 1.7 million metric tons of copper concentrate and output capacity will reach around 650,000 tons of copper cathode and 50 to 60 tons of gold.
Reuters also reported that Uzbekistan’s Almalyk and Metals Combine (AGMK) plans a $15 billion expansion program to increase copper cathode output to 400,000 metric tons a year by 2030 from 148,000 tons currently.
