Copper production continues to see strong growth, confirming the long-anticipated supply-side build-outthat has underpinned our projection of a fundamental shift to surplus in the market. february data (the latest available) show global production up 6.0% year over year, the strongest rate of growth since mid-2005. however, london metal exchange (lme) prices for copper have pulled back below $7,200/metric ton. this retreat has been a bit of a surprise and appears linked to softer us housing data and reports of inventory building in china. july chilean mine production data also showed robust year-over-year growth" (u. s. industry quarterly review: manufacturing & mining, 2018). copper is essentially a commodity product, affected by global supply and deman