PATTERNS IN INDUSTRIAL COPPER CONSUMPTION

Previous studies demonstrate a consistent pattern of per capita consumption of minerals with increasing per capita income. This pattern defines a growth curve that can be modeled by a logistic function: C = (K/(1+ e-^(r log(i)))) P where: C is consumption of a commodity, K is a constant representing the saturation level of per capita consumption of the commodity in an economy, r is a constant, i is per capita income, or per capita GDP, and P is population. Future consumption of industrial stage Cu is here modeled by adjusting per capita GDP for real growth of GDP using UN median estimates of population and income. Parameter estimates for the logistic equation were made using consumption of industrial stage Cu, population, and GDP in the 20 most populous nations in 2000. Measuring mineral consumption in final goods is difficult because it requires disaggregating the finished goods into component materials requiring a large investment of time and strong assumptions about compositions of classes of goods. The 20 most populous nations now account for about 66 percent of the world total industrial stage consumption of Cu. The 20 nation total of 12 Mt Cu consumed in 2007 doubles to 24 Mt Cu in 2025 based on increasing per capita Cu consumption with increasing GDP per capita modeling. Assuming the same proportion of the top 20 nations to world total Cu industrial stage consumption, the 2007 world use of 18 Mt Cu doubles to 36 Mt Cu per year by 2025. During the doubling of Cu consumption by 2025, relative consumption rates among the 20 most populous nations change dramatically. The U.S. share of the 20-nation total will drop from 28% to 17% with Japan's share dropping from 11% to 5% and Germany's from 7% to 3.5%. In contrast, China's share of the 20 nation consumption of industrial stage Cu will increase from 15% in 2007 to 34%, whereas India's will change from 4% to 10% by 2025. This modeling indicates that China will be the world's leading consumer of industrial Cu by 2015. By 2025, the modeling indicates that China will use 8.2 Mt industrial stage Cu per year while the U.S. uses 4 Mt and India uses 2.4 Mt Cu.