Conditions of Copper Industry in 2003
Of all the materials used by man, copper has been the oldest and very important.
What make copper a material of choice are the outstanding characteristics, such as its
excellent conductivity (after silver) of heat and electricity, corrosion resistance, ductility and
malleability, ability to be well-alloyed with other metals, and ability to recycle as well.
Result from these characteristics, copper has played, and continues to play a vital role in
contributing to related industries including electrical and electronics industry constituting
50% of total copper consumption volume nationwide. Examples of copper-material products
are electric wire, electronics circuit board, electrical motor, communicating devices, and so
on. Copper can be used in machinery industry such as valves used in factory and pipes for
heater and cooling systems, casting industry, production of motor car parts, electric wires,
coins, and construction industry, etc.
Current Conditions
1. Production
Copper industry can be classified into 3 production types.
1.1 Primary production consists of several stages refining copper content from ore or
bringing used copper scrap to re-melt. Once copper has been re-melted, it can be turned into
pure copper cathode, which is the primary raw material that can be processed into needed
figures by related industries.
1.2 Intermediated production is bringing copper cathodes to process into needed
figures as follows:

Wire rod is a circle coil with ½ inch diameter and can be shorten into needed

Billet is a lump with 8 inches diameter and can be processed further into
size.
smaller size of tube, rod and bar.

Cake or slap is a piece with 8 inches wide and 28 inches long and can be
further hot or cold rolled into plate, sheet, strip, foil at needed size.

Ingot is a copper chunk that is mostly used in alloy casting processes.
1.3 Final production consists of bringing semi-finished copper such as wire, sheet
and tube to be produced into finished goods to consumers.
Production processes of full-cycled copper industry are presented below:
Source: The Copper Development Association. www.copper.org, USA
The United States, Chili, Japan and China are the world’s leading copper
manufacturers. The production quantities of these countries are 1.7 million tons, 1.4 million
tons, 1.3 million tons and 1 million tons, respectively. Most copper productions in Thailand
are intermediated and final productions due to lack of copper ore source to produce pure
copper. Therefore, most of the copper production is for serving and supporting domestic
ending industries such as copper and brass pipes, electric wire factories, and foundry, using
imported unformed copper materials. Currently, Thailand has one copper cathodes factory
named Thai Copper Industry Public Company Limited.
Production Problems
Most production problems are the technology limitations and operational workers
who lack the academic knowledge. As a result, there are defects from the production process,
which needs to be reworked causing higher production costs. In addition, another problem is
trade barrier of large foreign companies based in Thailand which frequently order copper
materials from their affiliated companies or companies from the same countries so Thai
entrepreneurs have faced severe problems in raw material purchasing and selling in domestic
markets. Moreover, there is a dynamic change of world prices of copper depending on price
mechanism and situation in China. All these factors cause Thai entrepreneurs to confront
with high cost conditions and pricing problems and they have to compete with each other in
low markets.
2. Marketing
2.1 Domestic Market
The demand quantity of copper products in 2003 is 228,264 tons increasing from
225,221 tons of 2002, or increased by 1.35%. The need of copper products in related
industries continues to increase. In 2003 the production in electrical appliance industry that
uses high volume of copper as raw material has increased, as seen in such products as
refrigerator, motor, transformer, electric wire, transistor and diode, etc.
2.2 Foreign Market
Import
Table 1: Comparison of import quantity of copper in 2002 and 2003
Quantity: Metric tons
Value: Million Baht
2001
2002
2003
% Changing rate
Products
QTY
Copper Matte
and Cement
Value
QTY
15
3
4,210
287
4,245
175,331
13,693
Powders &
Flakes
450
Bars, Rods,
Profiles
QTY
Value
-
-
0.3
208
4,756
360
12
195,465
14,153
217,015
16,242
11
80
559
101
587
118
5
4,074
513
6,202
692
7,705
888
24.2
Copper Wire
26,680
2,632
36,362
2,837
45,420
4,170
24.9
Plates, Sheets,
Strip
18,170
3,968
26,365
3,956
28,731
4,585
9
16 Japan, Taiwan
Foil
12,102
2,826
14,154
2,881
14,516
3,524
2.5
22.3 Japan, Taiwan
Tubes, Pipes,
Fittings
10,585
1,863
9,619
1,649
11,578
1,953
20.3
18.4 Malaysia,
Japan
251,617
25,865
293,147
26,480
330,308
31,840
12.67
20.2 Japan,
Indonesia
Unwrought,
Cathode, Billet
Total
Source:
3
Value
0.7
Scrap
176
QTY
Value
Important
import source
Japan
73 U.S., Germany
14.7 Australia,
Indonesia,
India, Zambia
16.8 Japan, U.S.,
Germany
28.3 Japan
47 Indonesia,
Korea
1. Bureau of Primary Industries, Department of Primary Industries and Mines
2. Customs Department
From the table presented above, the import quantity of copper as a whole in 2003
comparing to 2002 has increased by 37,161 metric tons or 5,360 million baht. Most imported
copper products are unwrought, copper wire and sheets in line with the increase in production
of products in electrical industry using such copper products as raw materials, which is quite
the same as last year. The important import sources are Japan, Indonesia, Australia and India.
Export
Table 2: Comparison of export quantity of copper in 2002 and 2003
Quantity: Metric tons
Value: Million Baht
2001
2002
2003
% Changing rate
Products
QTY
Copper Matte
and Cement
Value
QTY
Value
QTY
Value
QTY
Value
-
-
-
-
-
-
Important
export source
37
3
26,942
1,121
22,449
1,251
54,920
2,181
144
74 China, Japan
394
29
181
20
659
52
264
160 Japan, China
Powders &
Flakes
35
9
50
11
59
14
18
Bars, Rods,
Profiles
10,806
1,163
9,812
907
7,886
751
-19.6
-17 Taiwan,
Malaysia, Hong
Kong
Copper Wire
2,243
273
571
163
612
168
7.18
3.06 Malaysia, Hong
Kong, Japan
898
105
1,812
141
3,551
474
95.9
236 Malaysia,
Japan
6,944
1,117
7,862
983
6,761
834
-14
-15.15 China, Japan
21,779
3,176
25,189
3,678
27,596
3,865
9.55
5.08 Japan, U.S.,
Saudi Arabia
70,078
6,996
67,926
7,154
102,044
8,339
50.2
16.56 Japan, China,
U.S.
Scrap
Unwrought,
Cathode, Billet
Plates, Sheets,
Strip
Foil
Tubes, Pipes,
Fittings
Total
Source:
27.2 Taiwan,
Dominican
Republic
1. Bureau of Primary Industries, Department of Primary Industries and Mines
2. Customs Department
From the table presented above, the export quantity of copper as a whole in 2003
comparing to 2002 has increased by 34,118 metric tons or 1,185 million baht. Thailand’s
important export markets are Japan, China and U.S.
3. Summary
In 2003, the production in copper industry has increased. The import quantity of
unwrought copper that has been used as basic raw material of copper industry is 217,015
metric tons increasing by 11% compared to 195,465 metric tons in 2002. Such unwrought
copper has been processed further to use in related industries such as electrical appliance
industry, motor vehicle parts industry, etc. Also, these industries have expanded well.
Therefore, the potential improvement, value adding to the products with lower cost,
and increase of competitiveness in order to cope with more fierce competition in world
market would be required. Furthermore, the linkage among upstream, midstream and
downstream industries in order to develop the product quality together and set the acceptably
reasonable prices could increase the domestic market because the related industries have
moved their production bases to Thailand and opportunities to compete with foreign markets
both in short and long runs could be increased also.
4. Trend
In 2004, it is expected that copper industry would continue to grow favorably because
of the constantly increased production capacity of related industries such as electrical
appliance industry, motor vehicle industry, etc. In addition, the expansion of infrastructure
such as electrical system and telecommunication network would result in a greatly increasing
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Mr. Danuruj Winmun
Industrial Sector 2, Sectoral Industry Policy
Bureau 1
Office of Industrial Economics
September 2004