Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) Says Copper Concentrate Down for Next Three Years

Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE:FCX) senior vice president of marketing and sales Javier Targhetta said today the copper concentrate market will suffer a shortfall over the next three years because of 2008 prices which caused mining projects to be delayed.

Of course add the current plunge in prices to the mix, and it's hard to tell how extended that shortfall will be if demand picks up.

Estimates are there will be a fall of between between 500,000 metric tons and 1 million tons in 2010.

“The concentrate market will remain tight over the next three years, or even longer,” said Targhetta.

It's hard to tell what type of effect this will have on the short term, as scrap is helping meet demand around the world, and it's unknown how long that will last, and if it'll end up causing shortages which will cause prices to rise.

Eventually that will be a certainty, but the current economic conditions in China, Europe and the U.S., make demand possibly a less worrisome part of the equation, as it continues to drop in relationship to copper.

Short term this will probably be meaningless, and it'll depend on how long shortage last as to what the price of copper will be going forward.

Copper concentrate is what is used to produce copper.