BHP Sees Copper Supply Glut in Short Term despite China Demand Recovery

According to a commodity market outlook issued by BHP on March 9, led by the recovery of demand in China, global copper demand will continue to grow this year.

From the perspective of supply, many long-awaited projects will reach production in 2023-2024, including projects in Peru, Chile, Central Africa and Mongolia.

Although there may still be a series of problems in the actual delivery and production ramp-up of these projects, we expect that by the end of 2024, copper ore supply will increase by about 12% from 2021.

Not only will the supply of copper ore increase, but the supply of copper scrap is also expected to increase due to a variety of reasons, including growth in scrap copper resources in China, rising copper prices, and recovery in logistics.