072: “Copper is the new oil” and other views on the future of energy

One of my interesting friends is in town visiting Chile for a few days.

His name is Gianni– he’s originally from Croatia but lives in Vancouver, and has spent most of his career in the mining business.

Gianni is especially bullish on copper… primarily because he thinks the Age of Big Oil is coming to a rapid close.

He believes that conventional gasoline vehicles will be increasingly replaced with electric cars, which simultaneously reduces demand for oil AND increases demand for copper.

For investors, this presents an interesting opportunity.

Oil and copper prices have been strongly correlated for decades; in other words, as oil prices went up, copper prices went up.

This made sense in the past since both commodities were affected by the same macroeconomic forces.

Fast growing economies tend to consume a lot of copper and oil, pushing up prices.

But now Gianni thinks it’s time for those prices to de-couple.

You may recall that German carmaker Volkswagen is in hot water after being caught falsifying its emissions data. The press is calling it “dieselgate.”

Volkswagen has already been fined $15 billion by the US Justice Department, and roughly $2 billion of that is supposed to be earmarked to build electric vehicle charging stations across America.

This increase in EV charging infrastructure may very well create additional demand for electric vehicles… meaning that oil is going to start losing a LOT of customers, while electricity is going to gain.

Copper remains one of the most important commodities in electrical infrastructure, so prices may very well rise much higher in the future as a result of what’s starting to happen now.

Take a listen to today’s podcast, in which Gianni and I discuss the future of energy, as well as ways to profit from this long-term global trend.