doug smith agreed to let us have a look around.es directly from nearby mines and the copper is held until someone wants it. use 6000 pound forklifts. we can't load the copper as soon as the vehicle arrives. >> smith charges copper monthers $8 per ton per to hold their product. the recession was good, copper sales slowed, leaving smith with a full warehouse and a fat wallet. times are changing. >> there will be more of a need for copper. that is good for the economy. it is a little tough on us, we are seeing our copper going from 30,000 tons in may to about 5000 tons now. we are watching money walk out the door. >> also essential to the flow of metal? the london metal exchange. it is also controversial. alix explains. traders.tal is tied to itthe london metal exchange is a different story. you order something from amazon and expect to get it into five days. imagine if it took a year. that is what happened to some buyers like miller-coors and anheuser-busch when they try to get aluminum from the london metal exchange. >> why? big rea

warehouses almost never let cameras inside, but doug smith let us have a look around.etal arrives at the warehouse directly from nearby mines. the copper is held until someone wanted. forklift a 6000 pound to move the copper around the warehouse. we can load copper into the >> copperl stop producers are charge eight dollars per ton per month to hold their product. ironically, the recession is good for him. copper sales slowed to a trickle, leaving him with slow sales and a fat wallet. but times are changing. >> as production and manufacturing ramp up, there will be more of a need for copper. that's good for the economy, but it's tough on us as we've seen copper go from 30,000 tons of may to about 5000 tons now. we are watching money walkout door. >> my colleague, alix steel, joins us on the set. >> it comes down to lack of trust. comes down to trucks. sometimes it gets backed up because of that the reason i bring it up is because with the london metal exchange based overseas with 700 warehouses around the world, there are a lot of lines there. lines as long as 410 days

doug smith agreed to let us have a look around. the metal arrives directly from nearby mines.d until someone wants it. forkliftsa 6000 pound to move the copper. we can load it into vehicles. charges eight dollars per ton per month to hold product. the recession was very good for him. copper sales slowed to a trickle, leaving him with a full warehouse and a fatwallet. times are changing. >> production and manufacturing are ramping up. that is good for the economy. it is tough on us. we have seen the copper go from 30,000 tons to about 5000 tons now. we are watching money walk out the door. >> alix steel is back from arizona. here she is. impressive, right? >> it was fascinating. this was very rare that i got in. i worked for months. fascinating. there has been a lot of controversy related to the london metal exchange. a lot of warehouses are skittish about letting people in to see it. >> what is the difference between lme and cme? >> lme is based in monday. they also take a cut of storage fees. one percent of the fees go right to the lme. cme does not. they operate like a franc

doug smith agreed to let us have a look around.ed at the warehouse directly by mine. it arrives and state of the copper warehouse until somebody wanted. >> we can load the copper as soon as the vehicle arrives. >> smith charges the copper producers eight dollars percent -- eight to hold dollars per ton per month. times are changing. with the manufacturing ramp-up, there will be more of a need for the copper. that's good for the economy am a bit tough on us. we've seen our caught -- our copper go from roughly 30,000 tons in may to about 5000 tons now. we are watching money walk out the door. a pretty efficient business. he can get metal out in a matter of days. one of the difficult things in the warehouse industry comes from london. they have been plagued by very long lines, over 400 days. >> that is crazy. >> the premium for aluminum is that 90% since the end of december, creating a bottleneck for those who want to buy the metal. >> help me understand how banks lay into this. at one point, chinese banks were effectively giving loan