Beat the iron while it is hot, copper version. This is a bit like what traders have been doing for several weeks. Copper set a new record on Tuesday September 9 at $14,674 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange. The session shows an increase of 1.1%. Yesterday's record has already fallen. Over the year, industrial metal gained 18%. This surge is due to a worsening physical shortage and the fear of new American customs tariffs on imports. An industrial cousin of gold and bitcoin in the race for rare assets, except that this one weighs in tons and sleeps in warehouses rather than in a wallet.
Copper: New York is full, the rest of the world is dry
Two markets for a single metal. At the end of August, Comex stocks in New York peaked at 675,185 tonnes after 46 consecutive sessions of increases. Reserves on the LME in London have fallen by almost 40% since the end of May, while stocks on the Shanghai Stock Exchange have fallen by 85% since their peak in mid-March.
In fact, therefore, American importers brought in 885,000 tonnes of refined copper cathodes in the first half of the year, double their imports over the same period in 2024. In July alone, 225,094 tonnes of copper landed on American soil: an absolute monthly record. âPhysical copper continues to flow to the United States, which aggravates the tension in markets outside the United States,â summarizes an analyst from Everbright Futures cited by Business Recorder.
Customs duties: Washington moves copper stocks even before deciding
Furthermore, the market anticipates an expansion of American tariffs on refined copper from next year, and importers are not waiting for the decision to act. The futures curve has shifted to franc backwardation (copper delivered immediately costs more than that delivered in six months), a sign that immediate availability is worth gold.
In addition, global mining production is no longer keeping pace: analysts are counting on a first annual decline in extraction since 2017. And the gap has just widened suddenly. Indeed, Grasberg, in Indonesia, is the second largest copper mine in the world. The latter was hit on September 8 by a mudslide which trapped workers underground, forcing the operator Freeport-McMoRan to declare force majeure. Goldman Sachs estimates the total production loss at 525,000 tonnes, according to data relayed by Yahoo Finance, enough to shift its 2025 global balance sheet from a surplus of 105,000 tonnes to a deficit of 55,500 tonnes.
The appetite for artificial intelligence is already outpacing copper predictions
A little over a year ago, Goldman Sachs targeted $10,750 per tonne by 2027. The market has therefore already doubled down, eighteen months ahead of its own schedule.
Why such a gap? Because structural demand no longer comes only from electrical cables and the building. Data centers for artificial intelligence and the great wave of electrification, from transport to networks, are driving demand upwards at the precise moment when mining supply stalls. Even State Grid, China's state-owned electricity operator, is placing orders that local brokers consider solid. Please note, this surge remains above all a phenomenon of stocks and price anticipation, not yet definitive proof of a structural shift in demand. But copper already checks almost all the boxes for a lasting shortage.
