Japan's largest copper producer: copper prices have bottomed out and will return to a high of $7000 by the end of the year

Published: Aug 3, 2018 15:12

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SMM8 3 / PRNewswire-Asianet / Pan Pacific Copper, Japan's largest copper producer, said copper prices are bottoming out and could return to $7000 by the end of the year.

Copper prices have fallen to about $6130 a tonne from a high of $7348 a tonne in early June amid fears that US-led trade will slow Chinese consumption growth. But Suwabe said in an interview at its Tokyo headquarters, "at present, trade frictions have not had any impact on the needs of the company's Chinese customers. Still, fears of a trade war dominate the market, and copper is not responding to supply shocks as usual. The labor dispute in Chile has also failed to raise copper prices this week, and even after the news of the Escondida copper strike, there has been no major stimulus to copper prices.

But Suwabe also said the broader trend is that the strong development of electric vehicles has made the use of copper more and more common, and copper demand will become stronger and stronger in the future.

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