Do not listen to what miners say. Look at what they do.
That is good advice for working out the long-term direction of commodities prices. Ask mining companies which of their mineral assets will see good long-term demand and they will naturally answer, “All of them.” But a look at spending can give the lie to that rosy outlook and highlight the times when they are putting their money where their bullish mouths are.
Right now, that suggests that the recent gloomy outlook for copper may not last. More than a third of capital spending by big diversified miners is being dedicated to the metal at the moment, up from levels of 20% or less earlier in the decade. That represents a substantial bet that forecast deficits for copper over the next decade will indeed materialise.
Georgian Mining Corporation (LON:GEO) has 50% ownership of the Bolnisi Copper and Gold Project in Georgia, situated on the prolific Tethyan Belt, a well-known geological region and host to many high-grade copper-gold deposits and producing mines.