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deleted
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 Posted - 07/25/2008 : 03:53:55
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Copper has been in the news as the metal of choice for thieves around Wichita.
David Vaughn asks, "If the world has a large supply of copper, and so much is available, why is it so expensive?"
Good question.
Copper is one of our most used, most common metals. The supply of copper in the United States is plentiful. For a while, copper was not expensive. As a result, it is used in nearly everything, which has, in turn, increased demand.
According to livescience.com, the high demand drove the price of copper higher. The spike, according to the website, came in the early 2000s.
That's the reason copper thefts are now about as common as copper itself. No one was stealing copper in the '90s, but now, it seems not a scrap of copper is safe from thieves.
But, with the abundant supply, why the high prices? The answer is that the United States has a large amount, but other countries do not.
The global demand has, as a result, increased the price.
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Nickelless
Administrator
USA
5580 Posts |
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Nickelless
Administrator
USA
5580 Posts |
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silverhalide
Penny Sorter Member
92 Posts |
Posted - 08/01/2008 : 13:23:11
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I can tell you why .
Demand for infrastructure metals remain strong. Iron, ferrochrome (another story) copper and aluminum remain historically very high because in the latter two cases the metals can't be substituted and there is a huge worldwide power shortage in the developing nations. To my knowledge these infrastructure projects remain in progress.
Supplies of copper have been only increasing slowly YOY. I do agree the metal does has some risk on the supply side especially if the drought in Chile reverses and with some new major reserves in the Congo coming into production and if the developed nations economies remain weak but the metal will likely stay historically high because of its critical need in power infrastructure.
Zinc and lead are significantly lower because they are more industrial (batteries etc) and sensitive to the economy. Nickel is significantly off highs because of metal substitution to ferritic (ferrochrome based) which is much cheaper over austentic (nickel based) stainless steel.
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Good Question - Why Is Copper So Expensive?
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