New York copper price surge and Shanghai record: supply shocks explained for mine planners
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Copper prices surged again on Friday, with London Metal Exchange contracts hitting a record $12,282/t before the Christmas break and Shanghai Futures Exchange prices briefly touching 100,000 yuan/t (~$14,270/t), creating a sharp premium over New York. Comex March copper climbed more than 5% to $5.903/lb (~$13,000/t), its highest since July’s short squeeze, as 2025 production was hit by accidents at Grasberg, Kamoa-Kakula and Codelco’s El Teniente. BMO now projects an average $12,500/t by Q2 2026, while Goldman Sachs still sees a 160 kt surplus capping prices at $10,000–$11,000/t.
Technical Brief
- Grasberg’s accident led Freeport-McMoRan to declare force majeure and cut 2026 copper guidance.
- Freeport now targets full production restoration at Grasberg only in 2027, extending supply tightness.
- An underground flood at Ivanhoe’s Kamoa-Kakula in May disrupted ramp-up towards third-largest-mine status.
- A fatal rock blast at Codelco’s El Teniente in July further reduced 2025 Chilean underground output.
- Many price forecasts had assumed “normal” ~6% disruption rates, but 2025 outages materially exceeded this.
- BMO attributes much of the current price formation to ongoing US strategic stockpiling of copper.
- Escondida in Chile produced 1.28 Mt in 2024 and achieved the largest percentage output increase among peers.
Our Take
BloombergNEF’s projected 19‑million‑tonne copper shortfall by 2050, cited in a related piece, underlines why assets like Escondida, Grasberg and future projects such as Resolution Copper in Arizona are being closely watched whenever New York and Shanghai prices spike.
Canada’s approval of the Anglo American–Teck merger, which would create a group with just under 5% of global copper supply, suggests that majors like BHP, Rio Tinto and Glencore named here may need comparable scale or partnerships to secure long‑life copper positions as structural deficits loom.
In our database of 454 Mining stories, copper repeatedly appears alongside ‘critical minerals’ themes, and the inclusion of uranium and potash on the US critical minerals list signals that US policy attention is broadening beyond copper even as projects like Resolution Copper are framed as strategic for domestic supply.
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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