Freeport’s Grasberg operation located in Indonesia suspended operations on September 8 after a deadly mud slide

International News via Reuters:

Metals analysts are cutting their estimates of global copper supplies for this year and next after an accident at the giant Grasberg mine dramatically tightened the outlook for the market.

Copper prices hit 15-month highs of $10,485 a metric ton last week after Freeport-McMoRan declared force majeure at its Grasberg mine and cut sales forecast from the Indonesian unit for this year and 2026.

Freeport’s Grasberg operation located in Indonesia suspended operations on September 8 after a deadly mud slide.

The world’s second-largest copper mine behind Chile’s Escondida faces a lengthy damage assessment process and a clear-up while the search for missing workers continues.

“The scale of this disruption is very big,” said Albert Mackenzie, a copper analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Benchmark’s analysis suggests the disruption will amount to 591,000 tons of lost copper output between September 2025 and the end of 2026.    

This amounts to 2.6% of the 2024 global mine production estimated at around 23 million tons by analysts. 

Supply losses from Grasberg mean the global copper market is facing a significantly wider deficit of around 400,000 tons in 2025, according to Benchmark Minerals.

The disruption has shifted Goldman Sachs’ 2025 copper market balance from a projected surplus of 105,000 tons to a deficit of 55,500 tons. It expects a small surplus in 2026.

With the losses in Grasberg’s September-December production, the copper market faces the largest deficit since 2004, Societe Generale said on Monday.

The suspension at Grasberg follows other large disruptions this year including Kamoa-Kakula in the Democratic Republic of Congo and El Teniente mine in Chile.

This year’s mine supply was already expected to come in below every forecast over the past 15 years and this is now exacerbated by unexpected supply disruptions, Bank of America analyst Michael Widmer said in a note.

BofA raised its estimate of the 2026 copper market deficit to 350,000 tons from a previous 162,000 tons and upgraded its 2026 and 2027 copper price forecast by 11% and 12.5% to $11,313 a ton and $13,500 respectively.

Copper’s record high was in May 2024, when it hit $11,104.50 a ton.

Reporting by Polina Devitt; editing by Tomasz Janowski

Pandora’s share price fell 2% by 0931 GMT following the announcement and are down 37% year-to-date as the Danish company struggles with weak European sales

International News via Reuters:

Jewellery maker Pandora’s CEO Alexander Lacik will retire next March after nearly seven years in charge and be succeeded by marketing chief Berta de Pablos-Barbier, the company said on Tuesday in an earlier than expected move.

Pandora’s share price fell 2% by 0931 GMT following the announcement and are down 37% year-to-date as the Danish company struggles with weak European sales, rising commodity prices and U.S. import tariffs.

De Pablos-Barbier, formerly CEO of LVMH’s champagne brand Moet & Chandon, was hired in November last year as a potential future leader of the group, and was the strongest candidate for CEO, Pandora said in a statement.

Investors had not expected her to take the helm so soon.

De Pablos-Barbier said she would continue Lacik’s long-term strategy of building the company beyond its traditional focus on bracelets to make it a full jewellery brand.

“We have to stay true to what Pandora is. Pandora is an accessible luxury brand,” de Pablos-Barbier told Reuters.

WEAK EUROPEAN DEMAND

Lacik’s departure is the latest in a series of CEO exits this year at European retail and consumer brands, which included Francois-Henri Pinault at Gucci owner Kering, Laurent Freixe at Nestle and Debra Crew at Diageo.

De Pablos-Barbier has enjoyed a 30-year career in luxury and consumer goods. Other companies she has worked at include Mars Wrigley, Lacoste and jeweller Boucheron.

“She is the right person to lead our continued growth, and I am pleased that we can maintain strategic focus and momentum during this smooth and orderly leadership transition,” Pandora Chair Peter Ruzicka said.

Pandora’s share price tripled during Lacik’s tenure as CEO, which began in 2019. After a dip in sales during the pandemic, the group’s revenue recovered sharply but growth has been hit this year by weak demand in Europe and the impact on costs of new U.S. tariffs.

The group announced in 2021 that it would stop selling mined diamonds, opting instead for lab-made versions to attract younger shoppers with less expensive stones guaranteed not to have come from conflict zones.

Reporting by Elviira Luoma and Louise Breusch Rasmussen; Editing by Terje Solsvik, Kate Mayberry and Susan Fenton

The move will affect about 2,000 of the 4,700 employees who work at the plant, which makes two Peugeot models, the 308 and the 408, and one DS model, the DS7

International News via Reuters:

Stellantis <STLAM.MI> will temporarily halt production at its plant in Mulhouse, in northeastern France, from October 27 to November 2, a union and the carmaker said on Tuesday.

The move will affect about 2,000 of the 4,700 employees who work at the plant, which makes two Peugeot models, the 308 and the 408, and one DS model, the DS7

The company said the step was being taken to adjust the production rate to a “difficult” European market and to manage inventories as efficiently as possible before the end of the year.

Stellantis had previously said it would temporarily halt production at its plants in Poissy, near Paris, and in Pomigliano, close to the Italian town of Naples, from end-September for up to three weeks due to weak market demand in Europe.

Reporting by Gilles Guillaume; Writing by Makini Brice; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten