Friedland: copper supply is facing a huge gap

Robert Friedland (Robert Friedland), founder of Ivanhoe Mining, predicted at the first Future Minerals Forum (Future Minerals Forum) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that even without taking into account the incremental demand brought about by electrification, there is still a "huge gap" in global copper supply, according to the MiningNews.net website.

According to Friedland, the world is entering the "era of electrification of everything" (electric everything era). In the periodic table, there are eight or nine elements that are extremely important for electrification, especially copper.

He predicts that there will be more than 20 million electric vehicle charging stations around the world by 2030, and copper consumption will be more than 2.5 times that of 2019. Plug-in electric cars use 109 kilograms of copper, five times that of standard internal combustion engine cars.

"now we're talking about electric trucks, which use copper to pull by trucks," he said.

International copper prices have been strong since the beginning of 2022, rising again to $10,000 a tonne this week.

"but the world economy hasn't even really started to be electrified," he said.

He predicts that the world demand for copper will increase tenfold by 2030. The demand for copper in the mine is as high as 700 million tons. Even if the electrification factor is not taken into account, it will only take 22 years to consume 700 million tons of copper.

"where can I find so much copper?" He asked. "We people in the industry are scared that there are not so many mines in the world to meet the demand for electrification."

He predicts that even according to the most conservative estimates, the world needs at least $240 billion in investment over the next five years to meet expected demand.

Not only copper, but also nickel production must continue to grow substantially in order to meet the demand.

Friedland quoted Goldman Sachs as predicting that the metals market would enter a supercycle over the next 20 years. "the world urgently needs a lot of battery metal to cope with climate change," he said.