South America is the world’s leading source of copper

April 16, 2023 SouthAmerica

Copper, known as the Red Metal, developed in tandem with civilization, and its use remains critical today for our technological advances along with increasing standards of living. The history of copper with mining innovations is detailed in the new book Red Metal in the Blue Planet. Six of the world’s thirteen super-giant porphyry copper deposits are mined in South America and the continent represents 35.2 percent of annual global copper production. The largest mines are in Chile, but Peru has been increasing its copper production, becoming the second largest source for the red metal in the world. South America has the largest endowment of copper, followed by North America, which combined; the Americas have more than half of the world’s copper supply.

The science of geology, and mineral exploration, grew over the Age of Mining Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the 20th century wars and depression, until formulating a geological model on the nature of the primary source of copper mineralization. Copper developed during magmatic/volcanic activity along tectonic plate margins, making a class of mineralization called Porphyry Copper Deposits. A chapter in the book Red Metal in the Blue Planet relates the development steps in bringing together this deposit model. The geology of the ten largest mines is discussed in another chapter, and a short chapter covers the exploration discovery of one of the largest deposits in Chile, the Escondida porphyry copper deposit. Major mines covered included Chuquicamata, Escondida, Los Bronces, El Teniente, Collahuasi, El Salvador, Los Pelambres, Cuajone, Toquepala, Antamina, Las Bambas, Cerro Colorado, Cananea, Bisbee, Morenci, Ray, Bingham Canyon, Butte, Pebble project, Bor, Olympic Dam, Oyu Tolgoi, Panguna, Ertsberg-Grasberg, Roan Antelope, Skouriotissa, Rio Tinto, and others.

Most of Chile’s leading standard of living in South America comes from copper mining. The country was a major player for exploiting copper during the nineteenth century, with most of the metal being transported by clipper ships to Swansea, Wales, which used to be the world’s hub of metal smelting and processing. Copper production went into decline for nearly forty years as the USA overtook the industry by being the top supplier of the red metal. Once in the early twentieth century US companies entered Chile to bring new methods of bulk mining, the country then quickly developed to a premier status for copper mining. This wealth proved too tempting for social redistribution- the mining industry was nationalized in the early 1970s and placed under the management of Codelco. Red Metal in the Blue Planet compares the outcomes of nationalization of mining in both Peru and Chile, proving further analysis on the growing tendencies of social conflict with mining. All of this makes for important context regarding protests and supertaxes, including the final price of the copper-bearing product on the store shelf. Chilean copper production has rounded off, suggesting the province is reaching “peak copper” and may be facing gradual declines in the future. All finite resources may follow this trend, which was hypothesized by geologist King Hubbert in 1956 for petroleum availability.
The Chilean economy has long been energized or subsidized by copper production. A mining decline now with the national deficit reaching new heights portends future economic strife.

Peru’s hundreds of years of mining history first was founded on silver and mercury, but
following independence, and the Industrial Revolution, the US-owned Cerro de Pasco
Corporation brought a new round modernization to the mineral districts. These were polymetallic mines yielding Ag, Pb, Zn, and Cu. This company, under the guidance of Harvard associated management, held a near monopoly for sixty years until the mining industry nationalization in the early 1970s. Two decades of state-owned mining, failed terrorist revolution, and hyperinflation left the country crippled, until privatization of mining brought the economy back to life. This happened first with a wave of new gold discoveries, and then two decades ago began the copper rush, which is clearly indicated in the below graph showing copper production steeply climbing in the year 2000. Peru has placed itself as the world’s second largest copper producer, and many idle known copper resources wait investment and social management to join the ranks of red metal mines.

“Doctor Copper” is used as a market indicator to say whether the economy is healthy or a recession. The economics of copper pricing is explored throughout the book by examining the factors that impact supply, production costs, availability, mineral rights and corporate control of the industry, tariffs, taxes, and many other aspects that combine to determine how many dollars a pound of red metal costs. Interrelationships exist with inflation, interest rates, government debts on currency valuation, oil production, energy costs, the price of gold, and mining laws across dozens of countries. Red Metal in the Blue Planet examines operational and social controls on the pricing of copper.

Explore the Green Revolution or Green Transition and the particulars of a research industry, which remains rather non-transparent with gatekeeping datasets while simultaneously promulgating top-down political maneuvers for the behavioral control of essentially all the world’s cultures; this is dismantled piece by piece. Large technological shifts are pushed by world leaders, generally in lockstep with the World Economic Forum with its underlying communistic outlook, without appreciation of the metal supplies that are required for their own agenda. Research bias. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Political use of taxpayer-funded government subsidies on new required technology for gains through insider trading. This is climate corruption.

Do we have enough copper in the ground defined by exploration and geology to be mined and distributed for use in an e-Everything utopia? Increasing annual global copper production accompanied by declining deposit discovery rates has many market analysts announcing the looming shortfalls but none of them are in the position to bring solutions to the table. What will it take to re-imagine our economy, technology, and where will this leave us in two-hundred, five-hundred, or one-thousand years in the future? In contrast, the history of copper extends over 8,000 years, whereas the myopic planning for the next 50 years for carbon- ioxide management will just be a minor footnote in the history of the red metal. Wind farms, solar energy, and lithium batteries, they are all dependent on and subsidized by fossil-fuels. And they all require increased use of copper. Copper history is long, complex, intertwined with civilization’s advancement, resource control, wars between nations, and standards of living.

Nevertheless, very few people pause to even consider the red metal they use daily nor have knowledge about where it comes from. Red Metal in the Blue Planet explains this human journey of metal working and makes some projections on the nature of the coming future in mining.