Metal bubble

At $5,828 per tonne, the copper price is up 27% this year and almost 150% since the beginning of 2004. But miners don’t take that price seriously. They think more about the cost of production over the lifespan of a typical mine, two or three decades. They are right to do so. This boom looks like a speculative bubble. After twenty years of inadequate exploration and investment, no one really knows how much it will cost to add enough production to meet rapidly growing Asian demand. Most miners st...