For the next decade China’s growth rate is expected to be between 4-7%.
A hard landing? Hardly. It’s more like a Lamborghini ramping down from its maximum speed of 220 m.p.h. to a leisurely 145 m.p.h.
China is still the biggest, fastest car on the road, and it is going to need a lot of fuel, maintenance and repairs to keep it going.
But although China dominates financial headlines, there are other players with significant demand potential.
India, for instance has about the same number of people as China. They currently consume 3% of global copper output compared with China's 37%. Planned upgrades to India’s power grid will re-jig the copper supply/demand ratio.
Brazil and Russia are also ravenously hungry for commodities – particularly copper.
While the world’s biggest copper producers Freeport-McMorran (FCX-NYSE), BHP Billiton (BHP-ASX) Xstrata (XTA-LSE) are poised for growth – investors will find bigger opportunities in smaller companies - particularly those operating in metal rich countries with rapidly improving business climates.
Kazakhstan has an estimated $5 trillion of natural resources in the ground, and it beginning to attract the attention of international miners.
Orsu Metals (OSU-TSX), a London-based gold-copper exploration company is currently drilling the Karchiga Cu deposit in the world class Rudny Altai VMS belt.
Orsu has a management team led by legendary Asian mine builder Dr. Sergey Kurzin.
Dr. Kurzin played a lead role in establishing UrAsia Energy, a uranium producer with mining operations in Kazakhstan that sold to Uranium One in 2007 for $3.1 billion. He is currently the Executive Chairman of Orsu, and is driving the operations.
December, 2011 drill results have established an increased mineral resource estimate for its 94.75% owned Karchiga Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (“VMS”) copper project, northeast Kazakhstan (the “Karchiga Project”).
The new estimate reflects a 28% increase in the sulphide hosted Indicated Mineral Resource tonnage, and a 23% increase in the copper metal contained.
This has been achieved by the upgrading of “Inferred” to the “Indicated” category and through the addition of 0.8 Mt of new sulphide mineralisation.
Orsu also reported a 137% increase in tonnage and a 109% increase in contained copper metal in comparison with Mineral Resource Estimates for oxide mineralisation.
The total Indicated Mineral Resource is now 10.8Mt grading 1.73% Cu for 412 million pounds of contained copper.
Mineralisation at Karchiga occurs in a Central and a North East lode. The VMS style mineralisation in both lodes is hosted along the contacts between shallow dipping alternating amphibolite and quartz mica schist units. The two lodes have a strike length in excess of 1km and have been intersected down to depths of 200m below surface.
In the Central lode, the mineralisation is located within a series of shallow-dipping sulphide bodies stacked at four stratigraphic levels.
In the North East lode, the mineralisation is located within two sub-parallel shallow-dipping sulphide lenses.
“We are very pleased with both these latest results,” stated Dr Alexander Yakubchuk, COO and Director of Exploration of Orsu, “We are looking forward to completing a Mineral Reserve estimates for Karchiga as part of the Definitive Feasibility Study, with an expected life of mine in excess of eleven years.”
For the last decade, China’s copper consumption grew at compound annual rates ranging from 13% to 21%.
Growth rates for the next decade will slow, but demand will increase radically in Russia, India, Brazil and the rest of the developing world.
Orsu Metals Kazakhstan copper resource is worth over $1 billion at today’s prices.
Currently trading at $.10 with a market cap of $16 million, Orsu has significant growth potential.