The price of copper has reached a record high of $13,000. What is driving the market upward?

The price of copper has reached $13,000 per ton for the first time, continuing last year's rapid rally. The price increase comes amid mine disruptions and trade disruptions that are heightening concerns about supplies of this key industrial metal to global markets, Bloomberg writes.

The price of copper futures for delivery in three months on the London Metal Exchange (LME) rose by almost 4.7% during trading, exceeding $13,000 per ton.

This is the second record set by copper prices in the last two weeks. On December 23 last year, it reached $12,000 for the first time. Overall, copper prices on the London Metal Exchange rose 42% in 2025, making it the best year for copper since 2009, Bloomberg notes.

Copper plays a key role in the energy transition. This metal is used everywhere today: from data centers to electric vehicle batteries, notes Bloomberg. The rise in its price in recent months has fueled excitement surrounding metal supplies in the US. Last summer, US President Donald Trump announced plans to impose 50% tariffs on copper imports, but later excluded the most widely imported type of this metal (refined copper) from the planned tariffs. After that, the US copper market experienced its sharpest intraday decline in history (down nearly 20%), but then returned to growth.

However, the threat of the US imposing import duties on copper prompted traders to increase metal supplies to America, which reduced supply in other markets, explains Bloomberg.

"The historical build-up of [copper] inventories in the US remains a key factor determining global copper prices," Helen Amos, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets Ltd, noted in a comment to Bloomberg.

"We estimate that the global refined copper market was in surplus in 2025, but metal flows and inventories were distorted by [the threat of] US tariffs, which led to a significant increase in imports to the US," agreed analysts at UBS Group. The US, experts noted, has about half of the world's copper reserves, but accounts for less than 10% of global demand. This means there is a risk of reduced supply in other regions, Bloomberg notes.

"Years of underinvestment and ongoing disruptions at mines have left the [global] market with virtually no [copper] reserves," noted Eva Mantei, commodities strategist at ING Groep NV. In particular,the strike that began on January 2, 2026, at the Mantoverde mine in Chile is likely to affect copper supplies to the markets, Bloomberg writes. In addition, a fatal accident at the world's second-largest copper mine in Indonesia in September last year, as well as an underground flood in the Democratic Republic of Congo in May 2025, were among the reasons for supply disruptions that pushed metal prices to a series of record highs.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor