Copper Industry News Roundup

SHANGHAI, Jul 27 (SMM) - A weekly update on the trending stories from the Copper Industry.

Freeport-McMoRan’s second-quarter earnings has beat Wall Street’s expectations. The Phoenix, Arizona-based miner's adjusted net income attributable to common stock was $1.14 billion, or 77 cents per share, in the three months ended June 30, compared with $44 million, or 3 cents per share, a year earlier. The company lowered its capital expenditure guidance for 2021, excluding Indonesia smelter expenditures, to about $2.2 billion from $2.3 billion. Political uncertainty in Chile and Peru, where Freeport operates large copper mines, makes the company's U.S. mines "more attractive," Kathleen Quirk, Freeport's finance chief, said on a call with investors last week.

Codelco plans to triple its copper sales in Southeast Asia by 2023, while further making footprint into the Indian market to reduce its dependence on a single market. The world's largest copper producer will set up a new office in Singapore in August, serving the Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand), as well as developing the Indian market. Codelco predicts that these markets will lead the  global growth in copper consumption in the next 20 years.

Ivanhoe’s Kamoa-Kakula mine in Congo DRC has begun exporting copper concentrates to the international market. The first batch of trucks left the mine on July 17 and the shipments will be transported exclusively to China's CITIC Metal and Zijin Mining from the Port of Durban, South Africa. Ivanhoe signed an agreement in June to sell a half of the copper output from the first phase of the recently commenced mine to every Chinese company. The truck will leave Congo DRC and head to South Africa once the export clearance is received, which takes about five days.