Strategic buyouts, partnerships needed for securing copper supply chain: Report

New Delhi, Sep 4 (PTI) India should proactively engage with countries like Chile, Peru, Australia and Zambia through strategic acquisitions and effective partnerships for securing the sustainable copper supply chain, according to a latest report.

Global value chains and supply chain diversification are critically important in today's scenario when copper mines are concentrated in very few countries and the processing landscape is even more concentrated, it said.

Indian companies have strategically acquired stakes in overseas copper reserves. However, there remains enough room and opportunities to leverage India's foreign policy instruments effectively to secure the copper supply throughout the entire value chain, the copper report navigating through the demand and supply gap said.

Apart from KABIL-led government-to-government initiatives, more business-to-business and government-to-business collaborations are essential in the areas of exploration, technology and knowledge exchange, value-added processing, and recycling.

Khanij Bidesh India Ltd (KABIL) is a state-owned joint venture formed to scout for minerals overseas.

Existing bilateral relationships should be leveraged more effectively, along with multilateral forums such as the mineral security partnership, Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, to deepen economic cooperation.

Trade, investment, and offtake agreements should be used strategically as alternative finance mechanisms to secure a sustainable copper supply chain.

It further said that with the rising copper demand across the world and the country's growing copper needs, India must explore and extract more copper, given that large resources and reserves lie unexplored and hence not mined.

In India, projections indicate copper demand will increase significantly, reaching 3.24 million tonnes by the fiscal year 2030 within the conventional sectors, with construction, industrial, and electricity primarily dominating copper usage.

Additionally, the energy transition sector, although currently smaller, is expected to experience rapid growth. PTI SID MR