Copper Surplus Seen Shrinking on Outage at BHP’s Olympic Dam
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Copper’s global oversupply may be smaller than forecast this year after BHP Billiton Ltd. reported output disruptions at its Olympic Dam mine.
As much as 70,000 metric tons of refined copper production will be lost because of repairs to the largest of three processing mills at the Australian mine. That’s equal to almost 38 percent of the site’s output of the metal last fiscal year. The market this year was headed for a surplus of 120,000 tons, analysts at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. forecast before BHP announced the cut on Feb. 13.