{"id":14617,"date":"2025-02-05T08:53:33","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T08:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/05\/is-now-a-good-time-to-invest-in-copper-experts-tout-bullish-fundamentals\/"},"modified":"2025-02-05T08:53:33","modified_gmt":"2025-02-05T08:53:33","slug":"is-now-a-good-time-to-invest-in-copper-experts-tout-bullish-fundamentals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/05\/is-now-a-good-time-to-invest-in-copper-experts-tout-bullish-fundamentals\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Now a Good Time to Invest in Copper? Experts Tout Bullish Fundamentals"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

While gold is often steals headlines, copper is arguably the most essential resource for the modern world.<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, as demand for the base metal grows, supply is becoming increasingly restricted \u2014 in fact, major mines like Codelco\u2019s Chuquicamata mine in Peru and Rio Tinto\u2019s (ASX:RIO,NYSE:RIO,LSE:RIO) Bingham Canyon mine in Utah, which are over a century old, are returning lower grades and don\u2019t have replacements set to come online.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s copper outlook panel at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference brought together industry experts Rick Rule, Lobo Tiggre and Ivan Bebek to discuss the state of the copper sector and what investors should know.<\/p>\n

\n

Copper demand to rise with or without AI, EVs <\/h3>\n

It\u2019s hard to talk about copper without mentioning the energy transition, artificial intelligence (AI) and electric vehicles (EVs), but, Tiggre, who is CEO of IndependentSpeculator.com, emphasized that demand will rise with or without them.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much EV demand will there be? I don\u2019t care; copper demand is going up without it. How much will AI turbocharge it? I don\u2019t care; copper demand is going up anyway, and it\u2019s supply constrained,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rule shared that sentiment, noting how high demand is from developing nations alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are 1 billion people with no access to primary electricity; 2 billion people on Earth who have access to intermittent or unaffordable electricity,\u201d said Rule, who is proprietor at Rule Investment Media. He went on to note that the copper boom between 2000 to 2010 could be attributed to the urbanization of China.<\/p>\n

Ivan Bebek, president and CEO of Coppernico Metals (TSX:COPR,OTCQB:CPPMF), also discussed how the global population and urbanization are driving demand for copper.<\/p>\n

\u201cConstruction is huge. In the early \u201980s, the population was around 4 billion people; we\u2019re now pushing 8 billion. So just think about that development curve and how much that has changed,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018You know, the EV thing is one thing, but mining construction is huge.\u2019 <\/p>\n

Bebek went on to explain how urban centers are increasing their density to accommodate population increases. Homes built during the baby boom era are being torn down and replaced with condos. He sees this everywhere he goes.<\/p>\n

\u201cCopper hasn\u2019t gone away. As much as we want to focus on EVs, there\u2019s naturally a position where there\u2019s going to be a lot of development that\u2019s going to draw a lot more copper,\u201d Bebek said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Supply a growing concern as copper mines age <\/h3>\n

Supply is another key part of the copper equation, and it\u2019s being increasingly constrained.<\/p>\n

Part of the problem is financing in the industry, which was a theme throughout the conference. Junior companies dominate the exploration space and in many ways function co-dependently with large mining operators.<\/p>\n

Over the last dozen years or so, money hasn\u2019t been flowing down to the juniors from the well-financed majors. Instead, capital has been focused on mergers, share buybacks and dividends<\/p>\n

The result is that majors aren\u2019t adding to their mineral reserves, and juniors aren\u2019t finding significant deposits. <\/p>\n

\u201cBuying isn\u2019t building, so this isn\u2019t bringing any more copper into the world,\u2019 said Tiggre. <\/p>\n

\u2018The discoveries have to happen. This is not an \u2018if\u2019 question \u2014 it\u2019s a \u2018when\u2019 question. And the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. So somebody has to go out there and discover the stuff,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Copper mines operate on economies of scale, and small mines in the sector generally aren\u2019t feasible. The industry\u2019s mines are some of the largest and most productive in the world, but they\u2019re also some of the oldest.<\/p>\n

Rule described how, at 45 years old, BHP\u2019s (ASX:BHP,NYSE:BHP,LSE:BHP) Escondida mine in Chile is still regarded as a young mine, especially in comparison to Chuquicamata and Bingham Canyon. While these are all massive operations, they are now suffering from lower grades, and depleting copper reserves.<\/p>\n

Rule suggested that replacing these aging giants should have started 25 years ago, not today.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we did it, we found it \u2014 one deposit: Resolution. Wonderful deposit. A billion tonnes of ore in a great place between copper mines, towns, roads, highways \u2014 everything. One and a half percent copper, three times the average grade worldwide. It\u2019s been stuck in permitting for 26 years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rule\u2019s reference to the Rio Tinto and BHP joint venture outlines one of the critical problems faced by the industry today. It can take 25 years or more to take a copper project from discovery to production.<\/p>\n

The majority of that time is spent on permitting, and while some jurisdictions are easier than others in that regard, building a copper mine is no easy task. It requires considerable capitalization and risk.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, Rule advised mining companies to focus on scale. <\/p>\n

\u2018If you\u2019re going to take big risks, you gotta be shooting for big rewards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, the panelists agreed that deficits in copper supply will challenge the industry in the coming years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Is now a good time to invest in copper? <\/h3>\n

With a supply deficit expected to impact copper in the next few years, should investors enter the space now?<\/p>\n

All three panelists are bullish on copper, but each of them offered a different opinion.<\/p>\n

Rule suggested looking at the people involved in the companies. More specifically, he told the audience he wants to see a team with experience specific to mining or exploring for copper.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to deal with somebody who knows what porphyry rock packages look like. You don\u2019t necessarily want just exploration experience; you want access to copper exploration experience. The experience that the team got the reputation on has to be relevant to the task at hand,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

From Bebek\u2019s point of view, it comes down to capital. \u201cEverything about copper is expensive, and that\u2019s where the rewards are worthwhile. My main thing would be to ask about the capital that they have or the line of selling capital. You can also look at share structure to see if they\u2019re in a financial state with how many shares they have out.\u2019 <\/p>\n

He also suggested that investors should not be afraid to ask how much management has invested in the stock. \u201cIf they\u2019re not buying their shares of their company at cheap prices, why should you?\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most simple and direct advice came from Tiggre, who discussed understanding a project\u2019s quality. <\/p>\n

\u201cCrap is crap. Crap at higher prices is still crap. Crap at lower prices is still crap,\u2019 he said. <\/p>\n

\u2018If you\u2019ve got a copper project that\u2019s been known for decades and it\u2019s still on the ground and it\u2019s not held up by permitting, it\u2019s still in the ground because it wasn\u2019t economic.\u2019 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Securities Disclosure: I, Dean Belder, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on investingnews.com<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While gold is often steals headlines, copper is arguably the most essential resource for the modern world. However, as demand for the base metal grows, supply is becoming increasingly restricted \u2014 in fact, major mines like Codelco\u2019s Chuquicamata mine in Peru and Rio Tinto\u2019s (ASX:RIO,NYSE:RIO,LSE:RIO) Bingham Canyon mine in Utah, which are over a century […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14618,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}