FINANCE PRESIDENT, May 27 (Editor Zhao Hao) Pierre Andurand (Pierre Andurand), a well-known hedge fund manager, expects the price of copper metal to be nearly four times that of today, reaching 40,000 US dollars per ton in the next few years.

Anduran is famous for betting on oil, and was once known as the “god of crude oil trading” in the industry. Due to the sluggish performance of international oil prices last year, Anduran's $1.3 billion “Commodity Freedom Trade Enhancement Fund” lost 55%. However, according to some sources, the fund has made 83% profit since the beginning of the year, and the revenue mainly comes from other commodities.

Anduran said that soaring demand for copper will result in low global inventories of this industrial metal. Last Friday, copper futures on the London Metal Exchange (LME) closed at $10,349 per tonne, rising more than 20% year to date, and the price of copper futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange has also increased by more than 22%.

Copper is one of the most critical metals in the energy transition process. Anduran believes that since supply is difficult to keep up with demand, the rise will continue for a long time. “Given global electrification, including electric vehicles, solar panels, wind farms, and military use and data centers, we are moving towards doubling the increase in copper demand.”

“I think we'll finally have a chance to reach $40,000 per ton over the next four years or so. At that point, it won't necessarily stay at this price level because supply will respond to this price, but it will take more than five years for the supply to respond.”

In April of this year, BHP Billiton proposed a full share purchase offer to Anglo-American Resources. Currently, the offer price has increased from nearly 40 billion US dollars to nearly 50 billion US dollars. Analysts believe that the world's largest listed mining group insisted on the acquisition because the latter has a large copper business in South America.

This reflects the current problems facing the mining industry. Many miners would rather buy a competitor than launch a brand new copper mine, as new projects are often more difficult and more expensive. The industry estimates that it usually takes 15 years to develop a new mine.

Citi previously predicted that demand for copper will exceed supply this year, and there will be a gap of 1 million tons in the next three years, while Morgan Stanley predicted a 700,000 ton gap in 2024. Anduran added that digging deeper and faster at existing mines is not enough to keep up with the growing demand for copper.

In 2022, thanks to the strong trend in crude oil prices, Andurand Capital once recorded a return of 160%. More than a year ago, Anduran predicted that international oil prices would rise above the 2022 high in 2023 — $140 per barrel — but in the end, this prediction did not come true.

Anduran told the media that oil prices did not continue to rise along with the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and he did regret this misjudgment. “Oil traders, including me, have learned to be cautious. The expected supply disruptions didn't happen, and we lost a lot of money. I was impressed by that pain.”

Last week, Brent crude oil futures closed at around $82 per barrel, far below the peak of $98 in September last year. Looking ahead to the future market, Anduran no longer believes that oil prices will rise sharply. “Geopolitical risks such as Russia, Ukraine, and Gaza have not had an impact on supply; this is the reason why oil prices have always been relatively stable.”

“I expect it to stay that way without significant fluctuations.” Anduran said that in addition to the metal copper, he is also optimistic about other commodities, including cocoa and aluminum.

Despite huge losses last year, some data shows that since its establishment in June 2019, the Anduran Fund's annualized net return has still reached 34%.