Copper prices continued to trade flat in March. Over this month, strikes at major mines Escondida and Cerro Verde ended while Freeport-McMoran (NYSE:FCX) got a temporary export permit for its Grasberg mine.
Escondida’s Strike Ends
The strike at the world’s largest copper mine, Escondida in Chile, ended in the final week of March. The strike had lasted 44 days, longer than expected.
The mine is not rushing to ramp up back to prestrike output levels. Owner BHP Billiton (LON:BLT) has said will outline the impact of the strike on Escondida’s output in results due for release on April 26. The strike is estimated to have cost Escondida more than 200,000 metric tons in copper production.
Workers at the mine voted to return to work, despite not having reached an agreement on a new pay deal with management. Instead, workers extended their existing contract by 18 months, losing out on a new signing bonus or wage increase, but they will be able to renegotiate a new deal in 2018 after a new pro-union Chilean labor law goes into into effect.
Cerro Verde Mine Resumes Operations
Cerro Verde, Peru’s largest copper mine, had been operating at 50% of capacity since workers initiated a strike on March 10. At the end of the month, workers signed an agreement as the union accepted the company’s offer to improve family health care benefits and pay workers their portion of the mine’s profits earlier than usual. The mine produced just under 500,000 mt of the red metal last year.
Grasberg Mine Gets Temporary Export Permit
Freeport-McMoran was granted a temporary permit to export copper concentrates from its Grasberg mine in Indonesia, the world’s largest gold mine which also produces copper. The new permit broke a 12-week deadlock that had cut supply to Asian smelters. The new export license will last eight months. The amnesty means the company can renew deliveries of copper concentrates in Asia after declaring force majeure in February, but longer-term discussions over the company’s rights in Indonesia have yet to be determined.
What This Means For Metal Buyers
Copper supply disruptions have lasted longer than expected. Although they seem to have come to an end, their impact on supply still need to be outlined. In addition, these strikes have set the case for wage negotiations across the industry.
Some major contract negotiations in large mines are due in the coming months. In the meantime, copper investors might focus their analysis on macro factors such as the ongoing China-U.S. trade negotiations, the performance of the U.S. dollar and global demand for industrial metals.