Outlook for zinc

1
Outlook for zinc its by-productsA paper for
LATIZAsII Conference Of Market And Prices Of
Basic Metals

• Giles Lloyd
• San Isidro 26th June 2008

2
Agenda

• Zinc in detail
• Silver in a little detail
• Lead a brief overview
• Copper a brief overview

3
Delays to development of mine projects

• There is no one to design them
• There is no one to build them
• There is not one run them

4
World mine production has grown much as we
expected
5
Growth in Chinese mine output may now be over
6
Western mine production still has much further to
grow
7
Five of these mines will supply at least 100,000
tonnes more
8
Three expansions will alone add an extra 480,000
tonnes
9
Brunswick is the only major loss
10
Mine supply will significantly exceed consumption
11
Concentrate stocks will build alongside metal
inventories
12
Price will fall further as metal stocks mount
13
Many mines are arguably making a loss at current
prices
14
Smelter charges explain most of recent cost
inflation
15
Mine cuts previously took a long time to
materialise
16
Chinas cutbacks could be greater than we assume
here
17
Silver demand will struggle to recover to 2000
high
18
Electronics recycling to offset decline in
photographic scrap
19
Silver mine production is already growing
strongly
20
Silver market is already generating a surplus
21
Investor hoarding of surplus wont support prices
forever
22
Weak lead demand has finally allowed supply to
exceed it
23
Lead prices have already responded to increasing
stocks
24
Copper market will produce a surplus from 2009
25
Copper stocks will barely recover so prices will
remain strong
26
Thank you for listening
Giles Lloyd, CRU Tel. [phone] Email
giles.lloyd_at_crugroup.com