March 9, SteelGuru - Reuters reported that China's copper consumption will grow this year but more slowly than in 2009 and there are some worries about prices in the H2 of the year.
Mr Li Yihuang chairman of Jiangxi Copper said that copper consumption should be able to grow but not particularly well. Prices in the H1 of the year will be a bit better than in the H2. There is a bit of worry about prices in the H2.
He said that China's copper demand boomed last year thanks to government measures to support the economy with USD 585 billion stimulus plans and a massive loosening of credit, as well as direct stockpiling. But this year the government has started to tighten the money supply in an effort to shore up the economy in the long term while avoiding short-term speculative bubbles.
Mr Li also said that the company expected its Aynak project in Afghanistan to start up in 2013 or 2014, later than the previous plan of 2012. Aynak will have initial output of 190,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate.
Jiangxi owns 25% of the project and Metallurgical Corp of China has the other 75%. The 2 firms started construction of the USD 4.4 billion project in July last year and expect its designed capacity to be 320,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate a year.
(Sourced from Reuters)
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