A red-hot energy mart races to copper's rescue

摘要

While the slump in the U.S. residential construction market has some people concerned about copper demand, one sector-energy-has the potential to provide substantial growth for copper consumption. Investment in the energy industry in the United States and worldwide looks set to increase due to growing population and aging infrastructure. And with electrical applications accounting for around half of domestic copper de-mand, the prospects for growth look good, market participants and analysts said. Some 7.78 billion pounds of mill products were shipped in the U.S. market in 2006, of which 319 million pounds were imports, ac- cording to the Copper Development Association (CDA). Of that amount, 1.5 billion pounds were used in the electrical and electronic industry, which consists of power utilities, telecommunications, business electronics, lighting and wiring devices.