Speaker 1: You're walking through pools of water, little underground streams. It
Speaker 1: really is one of the most extreme environments that I've
Speaker 1: ever been in. From Bloomberg News and I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: it's the big take. I'm West Gsova. Each weekday we
Speaker 1: dig into one important story, and today the worldwide hunt
Speaker 1: for copper. Soon there might not be enough of it
Speaker 1: to feed our insatiable demand. The soundclip you heard at
Speaker 1: the top of the show, that was Bloomberg reporter Matthew Hill.
Speaker 1: He traveled to a huge copper mine in Zambia in
Speaker 1: southern Africa, and he's here to tell the incredible story
Speaker 1: of what it takes to get copper out of the
Speaker 1: ground and into your computer or your car, the wiring
Speaker 1: in your house. I talked to Matt in just a bit,
Speaker 1: but first let's talk about why copper matters so much,
Speaker 1: because I'll admit I don't spend a whole lot of
Speaker 1: time worrying about the global copper supply, and I suspect
Speaker 1: you might not either. In fact, our producer Michael Falero
Speaker 1: went out onto the street in Washington, d C. To
Speaker 1: measure people's copper i Q. He asked them a simple question.
Speaker 1: A smartphone and air conditioner, an extension cord in a car.
Speaker 1: What material do they all share is plastic mercury motherboard?
Speaker 1: Why is um aluminium? Copper? All right, it's not a
Speaker 1: trick question. Don't I ever think it? Right? I absolutely
Speaker 1: would have failed that quiz. So I feel a bit
Speaker 1: better that most of those folks did too. If we're
Speaker 1: looking toward a future of clean energy, clean electricity, copper
Speaker 1: is a critical ingredient and we'll need more and more
Speaker 1: of it. So we asked a couple of people who
Speaker 1: do spend a lot of time worrying about the global
Speaker 1: copper supply to explain what a big deal it is.
Speaker 1: Von Lee is a metals and mining reporter for Bloomberg
Speaker 1: based in New York. One thing is that if you're
Speaker 1: believing this electrification story, then copper really has the the
Speaker 1: feature for that, because copper has the most conductivity of
Speaker 1: all metals. Basically, not only your e vs need copper,
Speaker 1: but power grids, energy storage, wind turbines, solar panels, they
Speaker 1: all need copper because copper is simply is kind of
Speaker 1: the best metal for electrification. So how much copper does
Speaker 1: the world need? Well, think about this. The average car
Speaker 1: contains sixty pounds of copper. That's about twenty nine kilos.
Speaker 1: For an electric vehicle or e V, it can be
Speaker 1: a lot more. Here's James Atwood, senior Commodities reporter for
Speaker 1: Bloomberg based in Antiago, Chile, one of the world's biggest
Speaker 1: carper producers. Being an electric vehicle, it can be doubled
Speaker 1: or as much as four times that amount because of
Speaker 1: the reach out of batteries. And it's electric gun basically
Speaker 1: anything with word electric, and it means there's going to
Speaker 1: be a lot of copper. And you know, whatever, prices
Speaker 1: of copper go up, and then people look at things
Speaker 1: like aluminium and even plastic as alternatives of substitutes for copper.
Speaker 1: But there's no easy substitutes for the copper. Globally, Minds
Speaker 1: produce about twenty one million metric tons of copper each year,
Speaker 1: and in a little more than a decade, the world's
Speaker 1: demand is expected to more than double. I sat down
Speaker 1: with Van and James to hear more about what's at stake. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean coppers right now is sitting on about seven thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars a ton. It was more than ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars earlier. This year. There are several analysts who
Speaker 1: are looking at more like fifteen thousand, and they're not
Speaker 1: too disid future, so doubling prices so that obviously that
Speaker 1: has a vary on water inflation, the potential to be
Speaker 1: constraints on growth, but it also has a potential to
Speaker 1: be a constraint on zero targets. How long does it
Speaker 1: take to make a new mind. Let's say today I
Speaker 1: have all the money in the world, and I want
Speaker 1: to get a big, rich vein of copper, and I
Speaker 1: know where it is and have the permits. How long
Speaker 1: will it take? It takes about eight to ten years,
Speaker 1: give or a take. You need to build a mind.
Speaker 1: That takes years, and for a mind to be fully operating,
Speaker 1: that's a multi year process. That's why we are saying
Speaker 1: people are worried that we don't have enough investment right
Speaker 1: now because down the line the next five years or so,
Speaker 1: we will be needing all the copper. And that's why
Speaker 1: if we don't have investment now, then we will be
Speaker 1: running out of copper really soon. Do you envision a
Speaker 1: sort of a balance here where we need copper for
Speaker 1: renewable sources of energy and we need for all kinds
Speaker 1: of other things that we're going to need in the future,
Speaker 1: and yet it's dirty to produce. Is there a balance
Speaker 1: where the environmental costs of new mining and extensive extra
Speaker 1: mining from existing minds is outweighed by the benefit down
Speaker 1: the road or do we eventually come to a point
Speaker 1: where we're gonna need something else besides copper. Yes, I
Speaker 1: think the kind of like environmental and economic benefits outweigh
Speaker 1: the dirty part of copper mining, because I feel like,
Speaker 1: if we are really serious about decombronization, we want to
Speaker 1: electrify the economy, there has to be some short term
Speaker 1: compromise to make so that we can achieve long term decombronization. Yes,
Speaker 1: we usually associate mining with kind of like dirty you
Speaker 1: see dust and blast explosion and things like that, but
Speaker 1: the benefit of having all the medals in a circular
Speaker 1: economy is really beneficial to this clear energy future. So
Speaker 1: looking down the road, how concerned should people be that
Speaker 1: copper isn't going to be available, that products are gonna
Speaker 1: rise in price as a result of it or be
Speaker 1: in short supply, and that the move toward non carbon
Speaker 1: based energy, cleaner energy is going to stall out if
Speaker 1: we cannot solve this looming copper shortage. I guess what
Speaker 1: just has to be stuck with fossil fia for a
Speaker 1: relatively longer period of time. And I guess if you
Speaker 1: want to buy an evy, you'll have to pay a
Speaker 1: lot more. Then if we solve the copper shortage problem.
Speaker 1: In the short term, prices are coming off a bit
Speaker 1: lower than they were. Demand out look needs to demand
Speaker 1: that looks bleak just as demand weakens or seems to
Speaker 1: be weakening, supplies coming on. That's what's causing this short
Speaker 1: term pullback. But all that changes, according to the analysts
Speaker 1: that middle part of this decade, and that's when the
Speaker 1: tightness really starts become being more visible. And we'll start
Speaker 1: the points. But when you talk to people kind of
Speaker 1: in the industry, are they worried about what's gonna happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were just saying kind of like, we don't have
Speaker 1: the investment we need for the foreseeable future. So that's
Speaker 1: going to be a huge problem. And I would say,
Speaker 1: if Elon Musk is really serious about energy transition, you
Speaker 1: should invest in copper mining. Thank you so much, James
Speaker 1: Edwin von Lee. Really appreciate you taking the time and
Speaker 1: educating us on this big problem. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: After the break, I talked with Bloomberg reporter Matthew Hill
Speaker 1: about what it's like to go deep underground in a
Speaker 1: Zambie and copper mind. So we've been talking about how
Speaker 1: important copper is to an energy future with our fossil
Speaker 1: fuels for clean energy, and one of the big problems
Speaker 1: is that there is going to be a shortage of
Speaker 1: copper and coming years. There is a whole lot of
Speaker 1: copper in one place though, and that is in Southern
Speaker 1: Africa and Zambia, in the area around the Democratic Republic
Speaker 1: of Congo. So you'd think, great, they have big minds there.
Speaker 1: We can get the copper, but not so fast. Matthew
Speaker 1: Hill is joining me now. He's Bloomberg reporter based in
Speaker 1: Umbumbella in eastern South Africa, and he has written a
Speaker 1: story called The Medals for your ev are stuck in
Speaker 1: a thirty mile African traffic jam Matt, thanks for being here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks very much for having me on. So you went
Speaker 1: to this enormous mind in Zambia which produces a whole
Speaker 1: lot of copper. How much copper is there in this region,
Speaker 1: the central African copper belt that extends from southern Democratic
Speaker 1: Republic of Congo into northern Zambia northwestern Zambia. The area
Speaker 1: is bigger than the size of the country of Portugal,
Speaker 1: but over the past few decades very little of that
Speaker 1: copper has been exploited. Right now, together Zambia and the
Speaker 1: Congo only account for about twelve of global copper production,
Speaker 1: but there is the potential to produce much much more
Speaker 1: than that. So there are many many tons of copper
Speaker 1: under the ground and if they can get at it,
Speaker 1: it could go a long way to alleviating a future
Speaker 1: copper shortage. Exactly. So, Um you mentioned Democratic Republic of Congo,
Speaker 1: which sits right in Zambia's border to the north, and
Speaker 1: between the two of them there is an enormous amount
Speaker 1: of copper and a lot of travel between them to
Speaker 1: get that copper out, and that is the subject of
Speaker 1: your story. You went to a very large copper mine
Speaker 1: in Zambia and show just how hard it is to
Speaker 1: get it out of the ground and get it then
Speaker 1: to where it needs to be. Can you describe the mind?
Speaker 1: What did you see there? What was it like? The
Speaker 1: mind that we went to is in a small town
Speaker 1: called Muffu Lira in northern Zambia. Operations they're actually started
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties, so it's one of Africa's oldest
Speaker 1: copper mines. It's also one of Africa's deepest copper minds.
Speaker 1: We went down a new shoft just recently built, that
Speaker 1: extends one thousand five meters below the Earth's surface. All right,
Speaker 1: you gotta ask you about this, because I've never been
Speaker 1: down in the coppermine, and frankly, that sounds a little
Speaker 1: terrifying to me. What it is it like to write
Speaker 1: down one of those shafts to a mind that deep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's quite crazy. You get in what the mining folk
Speaker 1: call the cage um, which is just an industrial name
Speaker 1: for a giant elevator. It ready goes quickly. We actually
Speaker 1: went right down to the bottom of the mine. Even
Speaker 1: though it's in the middle of the African continent, it's
Speaker 1: actually below sea level. That's how deep it is. It's
Speaker 1: quite an intense environment down there. I mean, the rocks
Speaker 1: just because of the sheer pressure. You're going so deep
Speaker 1: below the Earth's surface. The temperature of the rocks is
Speaker 1: forty degrees celsius, which for those Americans is very high. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's well well into the nineties. It's also
Speaker 1: one of the Earth's wettest copper mines because it's in
Speaker 1: Central Africa. There's a lot of rain during the wet season,
Speaker 1: and that permeates, I mean it takes a long time,
Speaker 1: but that permeates down below the Earth's surface, and you've
Speaker 1: got these huge underground rivers flowing at this particular mining shot.
Speaker 1: They have to pump up the equivalent of forty seven
Speaker 1: Olympic sized swimming pools worth of water every day, and
Speaker 1: that's just to keep it from flooding the mine shafts exactly.
Speaker 1: So they've got these massive underground pump stations which are
Speaker 1: just constantly pumping up to the surface this water that's
Speaker 1: flowing down. I mean it's like waterfalls and you're walking
Speaker 1: through pools of water, little underground streams. It really is
Speaker 1: one of the most extreme environments that I've ever been in.
Speaker 1: And then how is the cover actually removed? What are
Speaker 1: the miners do? Are they blasting it? Are they using
Speaker 1: pixel It must be a fairly industrial activity, very much
Speaker 1: so they blast or out of the or being the
Speaker 1: rocks that contained the copper. They blasted out in my hands,
Speaker 1: I've got some of the rocks that have been blasted
Speaker 1: of the walls here. It's actually quite astounding how you
Speaker 1: can see the copper visibly showing up in the rocks.
Speaker 1: This is the richest copper that this mine has, and
Speaker 1: it's got just slightly more than two grams of copper
Speaker 1: per ton of rock. So to produce the copper, you've
Speaker 1: got to move a lot of rock then loaded into
Speaker 1: dump trucks. Those trucks haul it to the shot, which
Speaker 1: is the vertical tunnel that goes down to the bottom
Speaker 1: where it's loaded into cages and then hauled back up
Speaker 1: to the surface where it goes through a whole other
Speaker 1: process to produce a product that is ninety nine point
Speaker 1: nine nine nine copper, so pretty pure. And that all
Speaker 1: happens on the side of the mine where it is
Speaker 1: mine and refined to that very pure copper, which is
Speaker 1: then essentially a product exactly. It's all within the vicinity
Speaker 1: of the Muffule Era mine. How much is that copper
Speaker 1: worth right now in the market if you look at
Speaker 1: the current copper price, which is about seven thousand, five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars per ton, And I must point out that
Speaker 1: especially over the past year, the price has been extremely volatile.
Speaker 1: It reached a new record above ten thousand dollars per
Speaker 1: ton earlier this year um and has since fallen quite
Speaker 1: a bit. But just at the current copper price, you
Speaker 1: are looking at about six hundred and seventy five million dollars.
Speaker 1: You can see why it's worth all this effort you
Speaker 1: just described to get this out of the ground. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: do we know who's buying it where it ends up.
Speaker 1: The majority of that copper probably ends up in China,
Speaker 1: which accounts for about of global copper demand. And that's
Speaker 1: because China produces so much of the world's electronics and
Speaker 1: solar panels and other things where copper is used exactly.
Speaker 1: So you can imagine, I mean, when you're talking about
Speaker 1: removing tons of earth at the end, only the tiniest,
Speaker 1: tiniest portion of that is actually copper. Uh. And so
Speaker 1: you are hauling an enormous amount out of the ground
Speaker 1: in order to get very very little, which I guess
Speaker 1: explains why copper is just so expensive in many ways.
Speaker 1: That's the easy plot. There are no shortage of buyers
Speaker 1: for all of that copper. By getting it into their
Speaker 1: hands is a harrowing journey. When we come back, Matt
Speaker 1: is going to describe the very long trip by truck
Speaker 1: to get that copper to port. Matt, So, you went
Speaker 1: down into the mine and you watched how it is
Speaker 1: brought up from deep in the ground and refined into copper,
Speaker 1: and next is trying to get into the hands of
Speaker 1: the people who want to use it. Um, can you
Speaker 1: describe exactly what it takes to do that? Well, it
Speaker 1: must be one of the most difficult jobs in the world,
Speaker 1: if not one of the longest jobs in the world
Speaker 1: to complete. Watch should be a relatively simple task. From
Speaker 1: the Democratic Republic of Congo, the mind's just north of
Speaker 1: the Zambian border there, which are actually much bigger than
Speaker 1: the Zambian minds in terms of production. You are looking
Speaker 1: at about three thousand kilometers down to the port of Durban,
Speaker 1: just off South Africa's east coast, which has always been
Speaker 1: the most important port for copper exports out of the
Speaker 1: Central African copper belt for both Zambia as well as
Speaker 1: the Democratic Republic of Congo. That three thousand kilometer journey
Speaker 1: this yeah, it's taken more than thirty days, and that
Speaker 1: trip is incredibly long. And heroin. Can you describe it?
Speaker 1: Because you in a long this route and you saw
Speaker 1: what it's like to transport copper. One of the most
Speaker 1: interesting things I've ever seen in my life is the
Speaker 1: Kasumba lesser border between Zambia and the Congo. That in
Speaker 1: essence is where the biggest problem is. Um You've got
Speaker 1: on the Zambian side a queue of trucks waiting to
Speaker 1: cross into the Democratic Republic of Congo about fifty kilometers long.
Speaker 1: So that's where the title of your story comes as
Speaker 1: about thirty two miles. So there's thirty two mile long
Speaker 1: queue of trucks all just waiting to get underwetg Yeah,
Speaker 1: and these drivers are there for days, I mean as
Speaker 1: as long as a week it takes to cross that border.
Speaker 1: Why does it take so long across the border. The
Speaker 1: growth in production out of the copper mines in the
Speaker 1: Democratic Republic of Congo has been so large that the
Speaker 1: customs officials haven't been able to keep up. So it
Speaker 1: takes that long just to get your papers and make
Speaker 1: it all officials so that you can then just hit
Speaker 1: the road exactly. The border process is extremely slow, and
Speaker 1: these drivers spend as long as a week waiting in
Speaker 1: these queues. So what are they doing? I mean they're
Speaker 1: sitting in trucks. Where do they sleep, how do they eat?
Speaker 1: What is the scene like? They're everything's just centered around
Speaker 1: the cabin of their truck. That's their home. And bear
Speaker 1: in mind that there's this is rural rural Africa. In
Speaker 1: many stretches of of the queue, there's not even villages.
Speaker 1: So these these drivers are just sitting chatting to the
Speaker 1: other drivers. There's no toilets, there's no showers, there's no
Speaker 1: real formal shops or restaurants. This is rural Africa that
Speaker 1: these guys are sitting in the end. I mean, the
Speaker 1: temperatures there in the summertime get extremely hot. And in
Speaker 1: your story you talk about how a whole informal economy
Speaker 1: has grown up around serving these drivers needs at the
Speaker 1: consumer lesser border itself. It's extremely interesting because you've you've
Speaker 1: got this hive of activity that sprung up around um
Speaker 1: just this cross border commerce between the Zambie and Congo,
Speaker 1: a lot of it being almost all of it being
Speaker 1: because of the mining industry. So you've got guys walking
Speaker 1: around in modified, heavily modified bicycles. They don't even have
Speaker 1: seats they just built to transport goods, water, cookies, or
Speaker 1: even charcoal that the truck drivers and other people used
Speaker 1: to cook their food. There's just this whole high of
Speaker 1: informal economy that's trying to make money off the truck
Speaker 1: drivers who have not much choice of how to fill
Speaker 1: their bellies or where to get drinking water and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. You talked to a lot of the
Speaker 1: drivers while they were just sitting there waiting to get underway.
Speaker 1: What did they have to say about their lives. Well,
Speaker 1: they are very appreciative of how and the scriptive of
Speaker 1: how tough their jobs are. Most of them are very
Speaker 1: eager to speak to me because they have an incredibly
Speaker 1: difficult job and they want to tell people about that.
Speaker 1: One of the things that the drivers were most eager
Speaker 1: to speak about is just how dangerous it is for
Speaker 1: them to cross into the Democratic Republic of Congo. They
Speaker 1: complained bitterly about police corruption. They're basically police demanding that
Speaker 1: they pay bribes. It's none on corruption. And because the
Speaker 1: police there, even if you haven't done nothing, they can
Speaker 1: even come to your truck and my brother, ah, I
Speaker 1: can see your light is not okay. He hasn't even
Speaker 1: checked the truck, so you must have something on the
Speaker 1: on the road. No money, ah, you can die. There's
Speaker 1: also a problem of crime when the drivers are sitting
Speaker 1: there with their trucks and sort of like sitting ducks
Speaker 1: for thieves. Yeah, exactly. Um And a few of the
Speaker 1: drives that I spoke to raise that issue, one of
Speaker 1: them said that he basically has to sleep with one
Speaker 1: eye open because, especially this year, with the rocketing price
Speaker 1: of diesel um that's awesome, made the diesel in their
Speaker 1: trucks a very lucrative target for thieves. You do sleep
Speaker 1: like absolutely pink because sometimes when you hear someone who
Speaker 1: move around that outside work up and then if they're
Speaker 1: able to make it through and it reaches port, then
Speaker 1: what happens Earlier this year, the Port of Bourbon in
Speaker 1: South Africa, which is the port that the mining companies
Speaker 1: rely on more than any other in the region to
Speaker 1: export their copper, that the Port of Bourbon was hit
Speaker 1: by floods not seen in decades. The floods not only
Speaker 1: killed more than four people, but they caused severe damage
Speaker 1: to the port. The damage that these floods caused has
Speaker 1: only made matters worse when I visited the port earlier
Speaker 1: this year. It was still recovering from the floods. They
Speaker 1: washed away roads and damaged warehouses. It's very difficult to
Speaker 1: explain how bad the damage was. So if these drivers
Speaker 1: are waiting as long as two weeks just to get
Speaker 1: out of Congo and into Zambia and then they have
Speaker 1: to go on this very dangerous and long trek down
Speaker 1: to port, how long does it on average take to
Speaker 1: get a load of copper from the mind to the port.
Speaker 1: From the companies that I spoke to this year, they
Speaker 1: considered about a month of fairly average time. Matt Is
Speaker 1: the world's demand increases for this copper, it seems like
Speaker 1: this is not a process that can go on forever.
Speaker 1: They're going to have to do something about this to
Speaker 1: make it more efficient. Is anything actually being done to
Speaker 1: ease the supply line from the mind to the ports
Speaker 1: so that it is not this just like mad max
Speaker 1: like story that you've described here. This is the billion
Speaker 1: dollar question. So far, what companies have been doing to
Speaker 1: try solve the problem of congestion is to throw more
Speaker 1: trucks at it, which of course only makes more congestion. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: the most sustainable solution is to improve rail connectivity. That's
Speaker 1: what a lot of the mining companies have been saying
Speaker 1: they need to be able to move more of the
Speaker 1: logistics onto rail, but building rail is expensive and it
Speaker 1: takes a long time. Is other actually plans to do
Speaker 1: that now? I mean the Congolese government a few months
Speaker 1: ago unveiled an investment plan of about fifty eight billion
Speaker 1: dollars to upgrade their country's infrastructure. A lot of that
Speaker 1: is required for both road and rail. The Zambian government
Speaker 1: already has a railway line connecting the copper belt to
Speaker 1: the port of Darius Salam in Tanzania, but that's fallen
Speaker 1: into complete disrepair, so that's going to take a lot
Speaker 1: of investment to get the upper end and running again.
Speaker 1: There is also a railway connectivity from the Zamian copper
Speaker 1: belt to the port of Durban, but once again that's
Speaker 1: going to need a lot of investment. It's not that
Speaker 1: there will be one solution, but probably a number of
Speaker 1: different solutions which were require investment from both the governments
Speaker 1: involved as well as private companies to make sure that
Speaker 1: there is a sustainable way to get the copper out
Speaker 1: of this resource that the world desperately needs over the
Speaker 1: next couple of decades to the places that needed Matt Hell,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming on the show. Thank you very much
Speaker 1: for having me. I've really enjoyed talking about this. You
Speaker 1: can read more about Matthew Hill's journey to the Zambie
Speaker 1: and Coppermann and see photos of his trip at Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com. That's also where you'll find the latest reporting
Speaker 1: from Yvan Lee and James Atwood. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: us here at The Big Tech, the daily podcast from
Speaker 1: bloom Berg and I Heart Radio. For more shows from
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen. Read today's story and subscribe to
Speaker 1: our daily newsletter at Bloomberg dot com slash Big Take,
Speaker 1: and we'd love to hear from you. Email us with
Speaker 1: questions or comments to Big Take at Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 1: The supervising producer of The Big Take is Vicky Burgalina.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Katherine Fink. Our producers are Moe
Speaker 1: Barrow and Michael Falerro Hill de Garcia is our engineer.
Speaker 1: Original music by Leo Sidrin. I'm West Casova. Have a
Speaker 1: great weekend.