The country ranks seventh in global refined copper production with three major players dominating the copper industry in India
After dropping marginally in the previous financial year, the country's copper ore production has grown a robust 12% at 41.22 lakh tonne in the just concluded FY19 fiscal, highest in recent times, India's sole miner Hindustan Copper has said.
The state-owned company in FY18 suffered a 4.5% drop in production to 36.75 lakh tonne from 38.45 lakh tonne a year ago, while metal in concentrate rose marginally from 31,793 tonne in FY18 to 32,439 tonne in FY19 in line with the production trend seen from FY17.
Copper sales rose 5% in the previous fiscal to 38,321 tonne in all forms taken together, data issued by the state-owned miner said.
The growth comes at a time when global copper prices in the current year till date has benefitted from growing optimism surrounding the US-China trade talks and draw-down in inventories which are off by 70% from year-ago levels, Yes Securities said in a recent outlook report.
While Hindustan Copper would benefit from global price swings in 2018-19 after a prolonged drop in prices in previous years, production wise, India is a fringe player with limited copper ore reserves constituting just 2% of the world copper reserves.
The country ranks seventh in global refined copper production with three major players dominating the copper industry in India. While private players Hindalco and Vedanta essentially run smelters, the state-owned Hindustan Copper is the only miner cum refiner.
But with Vedanta's Tuticorin plant, which accounted for 48% of the country's output, closed since May 2018, India's refined copper supply has suffered a major blow with the refined copper output dropping to 540 kilo tonne in FY19 from 843 kilo tonne a year ago.
Things may look up going ahead with Hindustan Copper in the process of raising mining capacity from 3.2 million tonne a year to 12 mtpa over the next four years while Adani Group has now proposed to set up a 1 million tonne copper cathode and 5 lakh tonne copper rod a year unit at Kutch in Gujarat.
PROVING METTLE
- 41.22 L ton – Domestic copper ore production in the previous fiscal
- 36.75 L ton – Drop in copper production in 2017-18
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The growth comes at a time when global copper prices in the current year till date has benefitted from growing optimism surrounding the US-China trade talks and draw-down in inventories which are off by 70% from year-ago levels, Yes Securities said in a recent outlook report.
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