Copper price rallies above $13,000: supply, policy and project risks for engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Copper jumped as much as 3.3% on the LME to $13,173.50/t, closing in on this month’s record near $13,400/t, as traders reacted to long-term supply concerns despite looser nearby spreads from increased deliveries into US and Asian warehouses. Mining investor Robert Friedland warned that with annual consumption at 30 Mt and only 4 Mt recycled, maintaining 3% global GDP growth would require mining in the next 18 years as much copper as in the past 10,000 years. The US has now listed copper as a critical mineral and is reviewing potential tariffs through mid‑2026, adding policy risk to project planning and offtake strategies.
Technical Brief
- LME three-month copper contract spiked intraday to $13,173.50/t before retracing later in the session.
- Nearby LME spreads stayed loose as fresh cathode deliveries landed in US and Asian warehouses.
- Earlier in the week, a sharp physical squeeze had tightened spreads before the additional warehouse inflows.
- Metals complex strength is broad-based, with gold and silver setting repeated record highs into early 2026.
- Investor rotation out of fiat currencies into hard assets is a key driver of copper’s current bid.
- Geopolitical tensions over US efforts to control Greenland are feeding risk premia into metals pricing.
- Industry rule-of-thumb now assumes roughly 17 years from copper discovery to first production, constraining new supply timing.
Our Take
With copper already up 6% year‑to‑date in 2026 and LME nickel recently spiking on prospective Indonesian quota cuts, our database suggests base‑metal price risk is increasingly being driven by supply‑side policy shocks rather than demand softness.
The projection that as much copper must be mined in the next 18 years as in the last 10,000 years, against typical 17‑year mine development timelines, signals that greenfield copper projects in the US and Europe will struggle to respond in time without streamlined permitting regimes.
In our coverage of the White & Case Mining & Metals 2026 survey, nearly half of respondents flagged political variables as the key investment driver; combined with talk of a six‑month Trump‑era review window, this implies US copper and critical minerals projects face an unusually compressed period for de‑risking location and permitting decisions.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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