After “deferring” the nickel-copper-sulfide Eagle Project in February 2009, the future may turn a little bleaker for Rio Tinto’s plans for a metallic sulfide mining district in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Minnesota. The company is speculating that copper prices will take a dive over the next nine months due to plummeting global demand for the metal.
Rio Tinto's Bingham Canyon Copper Mine in Utah; Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons
“Underlying demand fundamentals have not necessarily supported the increase in prices,” Bret Clayton told the Mining Investment Congress in London.
Nonetheless Bloomberg.com reports that Rio Tinto Copper CEO Bret Clayton is confident that copper prices will remain relatively strong over a three to five year period “because of supply constraints and a lack of new discoveries”.
In March Bloomberg was reporting that prices were expected to rise due to a deficit later in the year related to China’s stockpiling of copper.
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Say goodbye to Lake Superior and surrounding areas once this mine starts operating.