The copper price continues to climb and on Comex overnight the July contract jumped 0.7% to US$3.189 a pound, after earlier rising to US$3.1925 a pound.
The price is an 11-week high for the metal.
Stockpiles tracked by exchanges in London, Shanghai and New York fell to their lowest levels in six years.
Driving copper higher is the speculation of faster growth in China.
This follows the country’s premier saying that the government will adjust policy to help the economy, preparing further mini stimulus measures.
China is Australia's largest-trading partner.
*Quality of potential new copper supply*
Finding and mining high grade copper deposits is becoming harder, with the head grade treated falling for almost each of the past ten years, and forecast to continue falling, according to Wood MacKenzie, Rio Tinto.
There is an increasing deposit depth, with the majority of major discoveries over the past decade and a half considered 'Blind', compared to all the major discoveries in the 1980's being exposed.
There is also increasing country and infrastructure risks with close to two-thirds of copper supply to come from 'Medium risk' and Higher risk' countries in 2014.
*Copper production on a global scale*
In 2013 global copper production pushed towards 18 million tonnes, with close to a third of this coming from Chile.
China is the second biggest producer with 1.65 million tonnes, followed by Peru with 1.3 million tonnes and the U.S. with 1.2 million tonnes.
Australia ranks fifth at just under 1 million tonnes.
Other notable producers include Russia (930,000 tonnes), Democratic Republic of Congo (900,000 tonnes), Zambia (830,000 tonnes), Canada (630,000 tonnes), Mexico (480,000 tonnes) Kazakhstan (440,000 tonnes) and Poland (430,000 tonnes).
*Proactive Investors Australia is the market leader in producing news, articles and research reports on ASX “Small and Mid-cap” stocks with distribution in Australia, UK, North America and Hong Kong / China.*
Reported by Proactive Investors 30 minutes ago.