India’s copper imports witnessed a 15 per cent year-on-year jump in financial year 2022-23. As per Commerce Ministry data, India imported 2,75,341 tonnes of copper in the previous financial year. These include both refined and finished copper.
- Refined copper is the end product where impurities are removed from copper ore. Finished copper, on the other hand, refers to copper that has been processed and shaped into its final form such as wires, tubes, pipes, sheets etc.
- India’s copper import in fiscal 2021 and 2022 stood at 2,38,483 tonnes and 2,38,694 tonnes, respectively. However, copper imports in FY23 were still lower than the pre-Covid high of 3,57,423 tonnes recorded in FY20.
- Copper is the third most used industrial metal after steel and aluminum.
- India used to be a net exporter of copper until FY18. In May, 2018 Tamil Nadu government ordered the State pollution control board to seal and “permanently” close Vedanta’s Sterlite copper smelter plant at Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu citing pollution concerns and following violent public protests. Sterlite Copper plant was catering 40 per cent of the domestic demand until its closure.
- India has set a target of 500 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030. According to estimates, 3,000 kg of copper is required for generating 1 MW of power via the solar photovoltaic and onshore wind platforms.
- Power generation via offshore wind is even more copper-intensive, requiring over 8,000 kg of copper per MW.
- Copper is one of the few metals that occurs in nature in directly usable metallic form (native metals) and is an important non-ferrous base metal having wide industrial applications, ranging from defence, space programme, railways, power cables, mint, telecommunication cables, etc.
- The greatest known reserve of copper ore in one body is the deposit at El Teniente mine in Chile.
- Copper is a common element in many minerals and sometimes occurs in pure, native form. Most of the world’s copper comes from the minerals chalcopyrite and chalcocite. Chrysocolla and malachite also are mined for copper
