Copper Products To Cost More

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30955, 11 January 1966, Page 12

Copper Products To Cost More

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Jan. 10. Everything incorporating copper, from homes to cookers, is likely to increase in price within the next few months.

A house is expected to cost ;an extra £3O to build. In cases where the quantity of copper involved is small [the increase, if any, will be | of pence rather than pounds. The increases will be the result of a rise of £4O a ton in the price of Australian copper. It is now £435, £l3O higher than in January, 1964.

A spokesman for the National Electrical and Engineering Company, one of the largest importers of copper wire and electrical goods, said in Auckland today that prices could increase throughout the whole range of electrical products. “One of the principal items involved will be copper wire and cable of all types,” he said. “I think it will have the effect of stimulating the use of aluminium cable. It is becoming more economic to employ aluminium and one or two power boards have gone over to it.” Mr D. B. Long, of the Metal Import Company, said Austra-

lian copper was still cheaper than British or Canadian 1 copper. i The price increase was I likely to add 10 per cent to ; the cost of piping and sheet- i ing and in a house the extra cost would be between £3O < and £4O, he said. " s There was a four-month 1 'time lag between orders and i deliveries and a similar < period would elapse before < the effect of the price in- I creases was felt. j The price of British and < Canadian copper had also risen but it would be about ; six months before the effect \ of these increases became 1 apparent. j

He said that piping, the biggest individual copper item in the construction of a house, would now be 6s 4d a pound. This represented an increase of s|d. In spite of the increase, copper in Australia was still significantly cheaper than on the London Metal Exchange, where prices had risen sharply in recent months because the future of the Zambian product had been jeopardised by the Rhodesian crisis. Zambia, which produces almost one-third of the world’s copper, depends on Rhodesia for transport and power.