The sometimes dizzying bust-boom-slump-boom history of copper is especially well-known in Arizona, a region that — combined with New Mexico and Sonora — is the world’s second-richest source of the metal after Chile.
This historical cycle is documented by Arizona Daily Star archives in the 2000s alone — much less the decades before that.
(With credit to former Star reporter Richard Ducote, current Star reporters Gabriela Rico and Tony Davis and Assistant Business Editor David Wichner, Bloomberg News and The Associated Press for the reporting excerpted here):
Oct. 23, 2001: Phoenix-based Phelps Dodge Corp. announces it will cut 1,400 jobs, trim copper production, and kill its stock dividend to deal with weak copper prices and a sliding economy. Copper price: 63 cents a pound.
Dec. 11, 2002: The long-awaited improvement in copper prices has not materialized. For the first three quarters of 2002, Tucson-based Asarco lost $38 million. In the same period of 2001, Asarco lost $81 million. Copper price: Just shy of 74 cents a pound. Prices would have to approach $1 a pound for happy days to return for Arizona producers.
Jan. 30, 2004: Phelps Dodge is ramping up production and hiring workers after two years of trimmed-down operations, when metals prices were in the tank. Credit China, in part, for this welcome uptick. A penny increase in the selling price of copper generally translates into a nickel-per-share increase in quarterly income, Phelps Dodge calculates. Copper price: Near a six-year high of about $1.12 a pound.
March 1, 2005: Shares of Grupo Mexico, the world’s third-biggest copper producer and parent of Asarco, rise for a 10th day on soaring copper prices. Copper price: $1.50 a pound, almost doubled from two years before.
Nov. 30, 2005: Copper producers could be excused for expressions of outright giddiness as the price of the red metal soars above $2 a pound. Copper price: “a staggering” $2.25 a pound.
July 12, 2008: In the midst of a bleak economy and big losses in construction jobs, Arizona’s copper star is shining brightly. Employment in the state’s copper industry increased 25 percent in 2007, to 10,300, according to the Arizona Mining Association. Driving that growth is the soaring price of copper, which jumped to an average price of more than $3 per pound in 2006, in large part due to a seemingly insatiable demand from China. Augusta Resource Corp. is proposing a new open-pit mine, Rosemont, near Tucson. Copper price: $3.76 a pound.
Jan. 2, 2011: The current meteoric rise in copper prices is due partly to China’s explosive economic growth, as that country snaps up the metal to use in construction, industry and consumer products.
In Arizona, the surging prices are triggering more copper exploration and mining, creating new jobs. Many forecasters, including Goldman Sachs, say copper could reach $5 a pound by 2013. Copper price: $4.40 a pound.
Aug. 28-29, 2015: Citing depressed copper prices as growth slows in China, Tucson-based Asarco says it will lay off up to 211 hourly workers as it plans to shut down its ore concentrator at Hayden and curtail some other operations. And Phoenix-based Freeport-McMoRan announced cost cuts and lower spending worldwide, including the layoffs of about 150 workers at its Sierrita Mine near Tucson by year’s end. Copper price: $2.34 a pound, approaching a six-year low.
Sept. 6, 2015: Hudbay Minerals says copper prices are cyclical by nature and “the current market volatility does not change our long-term outlook on copper” nor commitment to its proposed, $1.2 billion Rosemont Mine. (In 2009, Hudbay’s predecessor at Rosemont said in a feasibility study that the mine would be profitable, even very profitable, at copper prices as low as $1.85 a pound.) Copper price: $2.31 to $2.38 a pound during the week.
Sept. 19, 2015: Freeport McMoRan files paperwork to possibly sell another $1 billion worth of stock (on top of selling stock last month to raise $1 billion) as a rout of commodity prices continues. Copper price: $2.39 a pound.
Sept. 23, 2015: Copper price: $2.30 a pound.
(All copper prices based on futures on the Comex commodities exchange in New York.)
