Copper demand, prices to remain high: Aurubis

(Reuters) - Europe's biggest copper maker, Aurubis (NAFG.DE), expects overall demand for copper to remain strong this year with prices picking up at times again to $10,000 a tonne, a senior manager of the company said.

Peter Willbrandt, member of the executive board in charge of primary copper production, said late on Tuesday a recovering economy in emerging markets and Europe and the need for reconstruction of Japanwere increasing demand for copper.

"We will have a copper deficit this year and the copper price will increase in the next months again," he told Reuters in an interview at Aurubis' copper smelter situated in the Bulgarian town of Pirdop.

"We expect that we will see times when the copper price stays above $10,000 a tonne," he said.

Aurubis units were working at full capacity to meet the demand and the copper cathode production in the fiscal 2010/11, which starts in October, will be around 1.14 million tonnes, in line with the previous year, he said.

He said copper concentrate supplies were currently in surplus but for the full year the market would become relatively balanced as Japanese smelters, affected by an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster, restored production levels.

(Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/04/us-aurubis-copper-idUSTRE7431AQ20110504)