Copper: Humanity’s first and most important future metal
Millions of feet of copper wiring will be required for strengthening the world’s power grids, and hundreds of thousands of tonnes more are needed to build wind and solar farms.
BEIJING, Dec 7 (Reuters) – Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group , one of China’s top copper smelters, has reduced production by 20-30 percent to comply with winter output restrictions, a company official said on Thursday.
** Cutbacks started at the end of last month, and will remain in force until January, the official added.
** Tongling Nonferrous has copper smelting capacity of 900,000 tonnes per year and refining capacity of 1.3 million tonnes per year, official said.
** Its home city of Tongling in Anhui province had in September asked major cement, smelting, steel and chemical firms to cut capacity by 30 percent from October to December
** Tongling is not one of 28 northern Chinese cities ordered by the central government to impose strict curbs on industrial output this winter for environmental reasons.
** London copper edged up on Thursday but was still not far from two-month lows amid signs that growth in China’s property and power sectors is tapering into the year-end.
(Reporting by Tom Daly)
