ok so i cant figure it out what do you see on the ground in china tail wind or headwind and about two weeks recently the chinese are abuela and about their situation so the closer we get to china the more bullish they are and the farther away you are talking heads talk it down what are they are they are they bulent im like were gonna go build a skyscraper and houses or theyre like were gonna go buy a good u bag they dont have inflation they have cheap commodities coming from russia theyve got a giant tesco with cheap energy cheap metals cheap everything and so theyre out of jail you know theyve all been under lockdown i phoned my chinese friends to be very bullish on the future so if i look at the future though for copper we wrap it in then eighty four hundred on the lme should it should it be trading at 400 based on what you just said about china no i dont really think very much about short term fluctuations we know for sure that metal will fluctuate in price were in the mining industry we have a very long view we have to find a way to mine it sustainably at very low cost okay morning its guy that is fine you got to reduce the cost you got to do it sustainably youve got to ultimately look at the more positive picture going forward i hear what youre saying about not wanting to track robert the short term fluctuations but your sense is that structurally demand for copper is going to increase we are going to go through a big electric electrification program china ultimately probably will come back your sense is that long term the price of copper is likely to rise and rise significantly of course i mean youve just ignored india india has got more people than china now its growing just fine weve got 7 billion of us on this little planet hurtling through space we want to electrify the world economy that is dependent on the metals we mine and more importantly we have we have re militarisation all over the world so national security now demands a lot of governments are militarizing what do you think an army navy air force are made out of copper medals though things like that but this is where i think the short term and the long term line up and the same thing happens i mean oil market so you could see the bullish view for copper and why we really need it in the short term price signals dont tell you that so when youre making investment decisions doesnt that create a real problem yeah were under invested in this industry mining as a percentage of the s  p 500 is evaluation the lowest weve ever seen and have physical inventories of a lot of these critical metals are the lowest weve seen in decades so in time youre going to have a real massive appreciation when we are requiring these metals i think well toss out the mpv models a war for example demands we have the metal immediately all you have to do is see what happens with the real price of copper in world war 1 world war 2 yeah robert weve got a graphic up of the moment show where you might a copper the all south africa these are tough places to operate right now south africa in particular has a has a significant problem with energy weve got a big election coming up in 2024 what is your sense of the stability of where you are mining right now weve never had a problem weve been in south africa 30 years weve been in the congo 30 years our costs are denominated in the south african rand our revenues are in dollars were allowed to generate our own electricity now in south africa so were building and all electric mind were putting of solar power and so weve got a former president of south africa former deputy president south africa and our board and were the best story in the mining industry there so were enjoying it so we think do you think that thats going to change this is a country that has major unemployment issues it has aside from you maybe maybe your electricity generation its fine but the country has a has a significant problem with that there is a distinct possibility that were going to see a change of government in that country were we to do so do you think he would be as as well sorted as you are now yes you know we havent weve reinvented mining we have women in prominent positions we work well with the local community and every government needs good news id remind you we have both the chinese and the japanese as major shareholders of what we do so we have a type of political stability that we sort of ignore these negative factors because youve got to mine these metals somewhere absent that the lights wont go on in this magnificent studio absolutely yep youve got to run it is magnificent over there id like say ise is more magnificent over here but im not allowed to do that because alex is so downbeat on the uk but anyway in terms of in terms of what happens next in africa though do you see what do you see as the long term story in africa youve got a long history there this is a cac this is this is a continent where the population is exploding right now and i do wonder whether or not will i be able to get your long term take we got to talk about this in the next hour what your long term take is on the stability of africa what do you see happening its absurd to generalize across a continent as diverse as africa with a young population of one point four billion people is about the scale of it india or china in population but in general the gdp growth in the areas remaining if you look at katanga is probably growing at 20 percent a year and the gdp growth in the congo is very high so the medals that we need for electrification of the world economy are primarily going to be source in africa we cant mine in russia or ukraine we cant mining areas that are ecologically sensitive where it rains or snows more than it evaporates because of the integrity of tailings ponds its called in question latin america is turning quite far to the left sort of a yankee go home philosophy so its really africa that the world depends on to find the medals you need for any form of energy transformation so speaking of the ira here in the us do you anticipate copper being listed as a critical mineral went from i mean it sounds like you think it should be do you think it will be it has to be its obvious i had the privilege of meeting amos hawkeye state is responsible for this the american government he agrees with me its critical that copper be added to the list as does the senator from arizona of course where we are working on building a new copper mine do you think thats going to happen now it has to happen it has to it has to happen because americas really hasnt really developed a significant mine of consequence the last 40 years and the democratic party is now getting more favorable about copper for electrification rate and the greening of the world economy the republicans tend to were more concerned about national security but the mining of copper is absolutely critical to the very existence of this studio these lights these television cameras are following the development the whole yet modern economy so yes of course were going to be mining in the united states robert robert lets talk a bit about africa again though you talk of it being the kind of big critical source for copper and many other minerals going forward china has invested heavily heavily in africa over the last few years every time ive been there ive been shocked and surprised by just how big an investment has been made how is that going to play out does africa look east or does africa look west both if i were an african id play everybody off against the middle the chinese can only be accused of being prescient and intelligent they went to africa 20 30 years ago because its very clear that they have to secure the supply chain for one point four billion people of their own and now the west has to look to africa where we have enormous strengths and opportunities to offer a young african population and so i think its critical that america play to its strengths and also appear in africa in the last 10 years id say the americans have been present in africa only by their absence yes yes full stop last question here what is the copper price look like in 2030 itll be if you go out and build your house out of copper bricks the physical metal and covered with gypsum wallboard sound forget that its there youll be able to tear your house down in 2030 and buy a fleet of lamborghinis with a real profit many thousand the copper price will do much better than holding the united states dollar so fifteen thousand fifty dollars higher higher and higher even higher in real terms you know were measuring it in dollars the dollars are going to shrink were near the top of the dollar rally the fed is raising rates they can definitely engineer a recession if they want to but when we go back to a normal world and they stop raising rates im very confident that real things will be back in fashion