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Following four months of improvements, the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (Sacci’s) Copper Theft Barometer increased to R13-milllion in September, up from R12-million the month before.
This was the fourth monthly increase in the “relatively volatile” first nine months of the year, with the barometer having been as low as R10.7-million and as high as R15.4-million.
“The trend over the past nine months has been a definite setback from the earlier downward trajectory from 2012 to 2013 and suggests that the policy interventions against copper theft need to be ramped up.
“The prospect of constrained power supply until early November, as announced by Eskom on Wednesday, adds urgency to the task of ensuring the optimal efficiency of South Africa’s power supply network,” Sacci stated.
Meanwhile, the Copper Theft Volume Indicator also increased to 173 t in September, compared with 160 t in August and 158 t in July.
Sacci pointed out that the international average monthly spot price of copper had decreased to $6 734/t in October, down from $6 871/t in September and $7 005/t in August.
“The movement in the copper price mirrors the weakening in other commodity prices like gold and oil, so the downward copper price trend is typical of a broader global trend,” it added.
Meanwhile, South African exports of waste copper products more than halved to $7-million in August, compared with $15.4-million in July and was also down from the $24.6-million exported in June.
“Waste metal has been subject to a domestic preference pricing system (PPS) of 10% since September 2013, so the significant drop in exports in August is unlikely to be related to the PPS and likely to be a reporting issue or a structural factor,” stated Sacci.