question: price of copper

Mainly Chinese demand I believe.Wholesale price quotes on SWA I`m getting are only good for three days at a time.$5860 a tonne for scrap here in Scotland. regards,Mark.

Also, it takes quite a bit of energy to turn copper ore into wire. Energy costs more, copper wire costs more.

Charles Perry P.E.

The word went out some time ago when copper futures started going up and up. I put several reels into stock and I guess that a lot of people and business did likewise - increasing demand and putting prices up even more.

Sorry....

grumble grumble ... over $6000 USD to install a gound system

This is electrical contractors griping about it

just a fact of global markets.

Ah well, back to aluminum wiring. ;-)

Don't be shocked. Alcan is on the road as we speak trying to get inspectors on board..

world wide..............

magic

So the price of copper is going out of sight. Doesn' t surprise me. We have a world class copper deposit called the Pebble deposit near Lake Ilaimna here in Alaska. (Link:

The local environmentalists and fisherman are attempting to stop the developement of this mine and have stopped the permitting so far. If this mine is like the other large mines in Alaska it will use lots of energy - about 40 to 60 megawatts. Energy prices are going up as the price of crude goes up. We have about 10 billion barrels of oil in ANWR and no one can drill there because of the environmentalists. They stop the legislation in Congress everytime it hits the floor. Add to this china becoming a major industrial power that is competing for world energy supplies and you have it - prices going through the roof. You can bet the Chinese don't let environmentlists dictate their industrial power like we do. Having lived in a major resource State like Alaska for 40 years and having watched the environmentalists stop or hinder every development project all these years it will not surprise me when our grand kids wake up and find themselves in a nation controlled by Latinos and a world dominated by China and Russia where copper prices dominate the cost of wiring a home using cheap illegal immigrants to do the labor. The price of copper going up is just part of the general trend of Amercia going to hell!

In the '80s a colleague used to import small items of test equipment from the USA (sensitometers/densitometers).

At one of those times when the Dollar rose very rapidly approaching almost twice it's current value he found he couldn't sell his widgets.

After 4-5 months the Export Sales Manager of his supplier in the USA enquired why his sales volume had diminished almost to zero. "Because our customers (NHS Hospitals) have to apply for funding for their purchases during the previous financial year, this takes from 6 months to 2 years, (if they get it) and now even if and when they get their money the price has gone up and they don't have enough money in their budget to buy your products".

< Export Sales Manager, USA>

"The solution is simple, bill your customers in US dollars".

Of which they had *NONE*.

Doh !

So following his lead my "simple" solution for you is buy your copper wire in Euros.

;-) DG