The copper market is tightening fast, with a surge in shipments to the US and rising orders in China setting the stage for a rally that could take global benchmark prices to all-time highs.
Futures in London this week pushed past $14,000 a ton, a ceiling that had only been breached on a handful of days this year, and many traders see prices soon surging past the record $14,500-plus level reached briefly during a bout of speculative buying in China at the end of January.
This time around, the upswing has more to do with trade dislocations caused by the gravitational pull of the world’s two largest economies. While an unprecedented hoarding of copper on US shores has sped up in anticipation of a tariff decision, traders have been stepping up shipments to China to alleviate tightness there.
The flows to China come on top of an arbitrage trade that’s encouraging cargoes to the US and drove futures on New York’s Comex to a record on Wednesday. That has been going on since last year but has accelerated to the fastest pace in at least 12 years as traders await a White House decision on whether to extend duties on semi-finished copper products to raw metal.
There’s been no indication when or whether US President Donald Trump plans to announce a decision on tariffs, which have been a core policy tool in his effort to shore up industrial supply chains.
The president will be holding a meeting with mining executives on Friday in Washington, in a bid to showcase efforts to help spur critical minerals development and processing, with plans to unveil a handful of a deals and memoranda of understanding. (By Julian Luk)
