31.   Yet unlike zinc, copper production is expected to rise in the second half of the year, and aluminum inventories are still bloated.

32.   The shut-down would likely affect copper production, the main hard currency earner of this landlocked southern African country.

33.   Analysts are afraid that growing world copper production is flooding the market with over-supply.

34.   At year end, copper production, recoveries and mill throughput were running ahead of plan, the company said.

35.   Thereafter, it said that prices would fall again as increased world copper production would hit the market.

36.   They had already put their money on a fall in prices as global copper production looked set to boom.

37.   The company would also benefit from a full year of copper production from its new Osborne mine in north Queensland.