China produced 27 percent more copper in 2006 than the official estimate because government statistics didn't include output from the country's smallest refineries,China Minmetals Corp. said
.
Chinese copper output last year was probably 950,000 metric tons, more than the 750,000 tons estimated by the government, said Huang Guoping, vice-president of China Minmetals Nonferrous Metals Co., a unit of the country's biggest metals trader.
Imports of refined copper surged in February as the country added to its stockpiles of the metal. Prices have more than tripled in the past four years on soaring demand from China, the world's biggest copper consumer.
Higher prices have stimulated Chinese copper production, Huang said today in Santiago at the CRU World Copper Conference. Chinese copper refineries increased production by 17.8 percent to 2.93 million tons in 2006, he said.
The discovery of 26.8 million tons of new copper deposits will offset the country's ``heavy dependency'' on imports of the metal, Huang said.
Copper for delivery in three months gained $95, or 1.4 percent, to $6,755 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange. Prices have risen 27 percent in the past year.
Copper prices will fall, Huang said, without giving a time fra
me or specific estimate.
China's ``peak growth rate'' in copper consumption will slow in the next few years, he said. Minmetals will expand its presence in the Chilean copper industry and may finance and construct new mines in other countries, Huang said. The company may also ``selectively and prudently enter the high-quality copper smelting industry,'' he said.
