Copper producers across the globe are looking at China to continue to soak up enough of the red metal to maintain strong prices, even if economic growth there drops off a little.
Mining executives from around the world said at the Reuters Mining Summit in Toronto on Thursday that the question on their minds about China is not whether or not it will continue to drive copper prices, but by how much.
Oscar Groeneveld, chief executive for copper at mining giant Rio Tinto Plc, said copper consumption in China would continue to be driven by the roll-out in infrastructure.
"It is the roll-out of infrastructure, it is the increased electricity consumption," said Groeneveld. "Copper demand is going to be driven by that in terms of the internal market."
Chinese consumption of copper is largely behind a rally in the price of the metal from levels near 70 cents a pound a year ago to levels that have recently brushed $1.40/pound.
And China's imports of copper are seen growing sharply again this year despite a cooling of the economy due to government measures to tame overheated growth in some sectors.
Producers aren't worried about growth cooling a little.
"If the growth in copper consumption dropped from 20-odd percent last year to 15 percent this year in China, I wouldn't be at all perturbed by that," said Groeneveld.
China copper consumption grew by 24 percent in 2003 and is expected to show expansion of 15 percent this year. The nation recently passed the United States as the world's top copper consumer.
"They've been a tremendous buyer of product and I don't think that's going to dry up any time soon," said Scott Meyers, a New York-based analyst with Pioneer Futures.
The International Copper Study Group said in a 2004/05 copper market forecast that both this year and next year growth in demand will continue to outpace substantial rises in output.
In a May report the group predicted a global deficit in refined production of copper, which has been smelted since 3,500 BC, of some 750,000 tonnes. It said the deficit will fall in the following year to about 521,000 tonnes.
The size of the deficit will depend largely on China's economic growth and how much it is tamed by the government's efforts to slow an economy that grew 9.8 percent in the first quarter from the same period a year ago.
Beijing tightened credit in one attempt to slow red-hot growth in late April, and did succeed in pushing the nation's seven largest producers to cut copper concentrates imports.
Analysts say measures will cool the fire but it won't put out the flames, suggesting copper consumption will indeed continue to grow in the double digits.