Reuters scores coups at Chile copper confab

Reuters dominated coverage of CRU/CESCO week (March 31 - April 2) in Santiago, Chile, the largest annual global copper conference. Scoops and interviews influenced the supply demand thinking of our clients and the trading of copper and share prices. Reuters published an exclusive daily newsletter with CRU/CESCO that was distributed throughout the conference halls and the depth of the content was the buzz among analysts. Xstrata share prices leapt in the days after the mining company’s copper CEO told Reuters that its output from Peru should rise and that its debt profile was solid, also countering reports that the company was on acquisition trail. Reuters was also first to lay hands on news of a potentially huge copper find in the Democratic Republic of Congo by mining financier Robert Friedland, who discovered some of the world’s richest, nickel, copper and gold deposits. The CEO of Chile’s Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, revealed its 2009 output forecast to Reuters exclusively. The industry view, captured in Reuters final theme story, that the death-defying drop in copper prices appeared to be over was cited as a reason for NY copper’s surge to a six-month high above $2/lb as the conference ended.