There is more to excite the metals industry than the batteries boom, argues Lord Copper, with the global economy's gradual emergence from the 2008 recession boding well for metal demand.
Talk to anybody about metals these days and they are almost guaranteed to turn the conversation to batteries, electric vehicles and the metals that produce the motive power. Tesla's Elon Musk certainly garners far more column inches now than he ever did when he was one of the major players behind PayPal. Well, that's fair enough - I've certainly written often about the same subject, and its importance both to the metals business and the world as a whole - but we should not ignore other things that may be going on while our gaze is focused on the big prize. Commodities - and specifically metals - have had a period out of the limelight; it...