Southern Copper Corp (SCCO) Q1 2019 Earnings Call Transcript
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Southern Copper Corp (NYSE: SCCO)
Q1 2019 Earnings Call
April 29, 2019, 10:00 a.m. ET

Contents:

  • Prepared Remarks

  • Questions and Answers

  • Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning and welcome to Southern Copper Corporation's First Quarter 2019 Results Conference Call. With us this morning we have Southern Copper Corporation's Mr. Raul Jacob, Vice President of Finance, Treasurer and CFO, who will discuss the results of the Company for the first quarter 2019, as well as answer any questions that you might have.

The information discussed on today's call may include forward-looking statements regarding the Company's results and prospects, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially and the Company cautions to not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Southern Copper Corporation undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. All results are expressed in full US GAAP.

Now, I will pass the call on to Mr. Raul Jacob.

Raul Jacob Ruisanchez -- Chief Financial Officer, Vice President, Finance & Treasurer

Thank you very much, Victor. Good morning to everyone and welcome to Southern Copper's first quarter of 2019 earnings conference call. In today's call, we will begin with an update on our view of the copper market. We then will review Southern Copper's key results related to production, sales, operating costs, financial results and expansion projects. After that, we will open the session for questions.

Now let us focus on the Copper market, the core of our business. During the first quarter of this year, the London Metal Exchange copper price decreased by about 10.8% from an average of $3.16 per pound that we had at the first quarter of 2018, down to $2.82 per pound. That's, as I said, at 10.8% decrease in prices. Even though we see a good physical market for copper, we believe that falling prices of the prior quarter reflected the sentiment of a possible slowdown of the war economy, concerns with Brexit and an escalation of trade protectionism between the US and China. We expect a recovery in copper prices in the coming months.

We maintain our view of a total demand growth of 2.5% for refined copper in 2019. This will be driven by higher consumption in the US and Asia where China will demand about 3.5 percentage points more refined copper than last year. On the supply side, during the past quarter, we had production losses in Chile and Peru due to heavy rain and that was estimated as a total loss of production of a 165,000 tons of copper. Let me point out that, of these, Southern Copper lost 11,100 tons. As a consequence, we now expect a slight deficit for this year.