The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (Sacci’s) June Copper Theft Barometer registered its first significant increase since September last year when it rose to R11.1-million, up from R9-million in May and R9.9-million in April.
While the index has been showing downward movement in recent months, the barometer registered a marginal increase to R11.2-million in February, up from R11.1-million in January.
Further, the copper theft volume indicator increased to 158 t in June up from 132 t in May.
However, the chamber noted that the outlook remained positive over the short- to medium term, noting that the June figure was 38% lower than a year before, which pointed to a long-term decrease in the level of copper theft.
The positive outlook is, in part, attributable to the downward trend in the international copper price, which dropped to a monthly average of $6 919/t in July, from $7 003/t in June and $7 237/t in May. This is 8.8% lower than a year before and the first time the average monthly price breached the $7 000 level in nearly two years.
“Although there is a relationship between the copper price and theft levels, it is not perfectly correlated. “Short-term structural factors like the effectiveness of law enforcement in combatting copper theft also impacts substantially on theft levels,” Sacci pointed out.
Meanwhile, copper waste exports in February amounted to $36.8-million, an increase on the $35.1-million in copper waste exports in January.