Market Watch reported that the world hasn't started to run out of copper but there has been a significant rise in structural rates of demand that has created soaring metal prices and boosted investment into the sector. Mr Andrew Keen HSBC's head of EMEA metals and mining equity research, said that copper demand growth has grown from 2% per year to between 4%and 5% annually although he didn't specify a time frame. Mr Keen said that the lead time for new investment is 15 years, so you can see that this structural change in demand growth has created a huge surge in pricing and investment. This is nothing unusual China's metals consumption is following a very well worn demand path. He said that mining firms are expanding their capital expenditure budgets accordingly with the four London listed mining majors Xstrata PLC, Anglo American PLC Rio Tinto PLC and BHP Billiton PLC accounting for nearly USD 40 billion in investment. But they aren't getting much more for their money. Current CAPEX costs are about 50% higher than historical levels. Mr Keen said that copper has had an exceptionally good crisis with the market faring much better than other metals like zinc and aluminum during the economic downturn. Since prices slumped during the 2008 financial crisis, copper on the London Metal Exchange has more than trebled in price, peaking earlier this year above USD 10,000 per tonne and remaining near historical highs since then. This is because the copper industry has seen relatively low inventories, unlike several other metals and the industry hasn't been able to quickly respond to lower stocks and rising demand. He said that there are constant debates in the financial community over the price of copper but it is certainly a market in very strong underlying health.

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