Copper price above 15,000 USD: Will the rally continue?

The price of copper reached historic highs in the summer of 2026. On the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the price climbed in August to around 15,150 USD per ton. On the London Metal Exchange (LME), the world’s most important reference market for physical copper, the metal was quoted at 14,671 USD per ton as of September 9, 2026. The 52-week high stands at 14,850 USD and is thus only just below the absolute peak value.

Within one year, the price of copper has thus increased by around 50% - a development that has surprised even experienced commodities traders. As early as September 8, 2026, finanzen.net had reported on a veritable “copper rally” that had driven the industrial metal to a record high.

• But what is behind this rapid increase? Three central factors have driven the price upward in the past twelve months: supply bottlenecks,

• exploding demand and

• political tensions.

Supply is not keeping up

Copper is a finite raw material, and extraction is becoming increasingly difficult. The largest producing countries - Chile, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Peru - have been reporting production declines and disruptions for months. Chile is particularly affected, producing around a quarter of the world’s copper.

As the analytics company Tacto.ai reports, the El Teniente mine, one of the largest copper mines in the world, had to reduce its production to 301,000 tons per year after a rockburst accident in July 2025 - a decline of 55,000 tons compared with 2024. The Escondida mine, the largest copper mine in the world, also announced that it would reduce its production in 2027 by 300,000 tons to 1.1 million tons. According to a forecast by the bank UBS, total Chilean production will fall by 2.6% in 2026.

According to Tacto.ai, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the second-largest copper producer in the world, has also halted its copper exports, which is further tightening global availability. In addition, there is a structural problem: Many mines have been producing copper for decades, and ore grades are continuously declining. This means that more and more rock has to be mined to obtain the same amount of copper - which drives extraction costs higher and makes new projects less profitable.

The situation is exacerbated by historically low inventories on the LME. Falling inventories are considered in the industry to be an early indicator of a supply shortage and, experience shows, lead to rising prices.

Recycling and aluminum are gaining in importance

The higher the copper price rises, the more attractive recycling and material substitution become. Copper scrap is thus developing into an increasingly important source of raw materials. For industry, therefore, not only securing primary copper but also access to secondary material is gaining in importance.

At the same time, the economic incentive is increasing to replace copper with other materials where this is technically possible. An important alternative is aluminum, which can be used, among other things, in lines and electrical applications. Complete substitution is, however, not possible due to the different material properties. Rising prices could nevertheless ensure that manufacturers align designs more strongly toward material efficiency and alternative materials.

The energy transition is driving the hunger for copper

Copper is considered the metal of the future - and for good reason. After silver, it is the second-best electrical conductor and is needed in almost all future technologies. Electromobility in particular is heating up demand: An electric car requires four times as much copper as a combustion-engine vehicle, above all for batteries, motors and charging systems. Tesla alone consumes hundreds of thousands of tons of copper annually for its vehicles.

Equally crucial is the expansion of power grids and renewable energies. Wind turbines contain up to four tons of copper, solar installations need the metal for cables and inverters. According to estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA), copper demand for power grids will rise by 40 % by 2030.

A comparatively new, but growing factor is artificial intelligence: Data centers for AI applications require considerable amounts of copper for cooling systems and high-performance cabling, and the defense sector is also driving demand with radar and communications technologies.

By far the largest demand factor, however, remains China. According to Goldman Sachs, the country accounts for around half of global copper demand. Demand for refined copper did fall by 8 % year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2025, but the long-term trend remains in place: The Chinese government continues to invest massively in power grids, infrastructure, and electric mobility.

What the high copper price means for industry

For industrial companies, the rally is far more than a development on the commodity exchanges. Copper is found in cables and lines, electric motors, generators, transformers, switchgear, and numerous electronic components. If the raw material price rises permanently, material and procurement costs therefore increase in many sectors.

This affects manufacturers with a high copper content in their products particularly directly. But machinery and plant manufacturers also feel the effect through their suppliers. In longer-running projects, this increases the risk that significant price differences arise between costing, order placement, and actual procurement. Copper is thus increasingly becoming a factor in offer calculation, contract design, and purchasing.

Tariffs and trade conflicts additionally heat up prices

Since August 2025, so-called Section 232 tariffs on copper imports have been in effect in the USA - a measure that noticeably burdens international trade. In April 2026, these tariffs were converted into a staggered system, but the effects are still clearly noticeable.

Trade barriers between the USA and China make copper imports more expensive, while export restrictions such as those of the DR Congo additionally disrupt supply chains and trigger price shocks. Temporary tariff agreements, for example in June 2026 between Washington and Beijing, did provide short-term calming, but changed nothing about the fundamental uncertainty.

Investing.com describes another problem: Between 730,000 and 830,000 tons of copper in the USA are currently considered “economically trapped" - the arbitrage and price conditions provide no incentive to export the metal. This keeps physical inventories tight and continues to drive prices higher.

Why the dollar matters for German companies

For German and European companies, however, the copper price quoted in US dollars alone does not determine the actual procurement costs. The exchange rate also plays an important role. If the dollar appreciates against the euro, copper can become additionally more expensive for European buyers. A stronger euro, on the other hand, can partially cushion an increase in the world market price. Companies with high metal demand must therefore increasingly take currency risks into account in addition to the raw material price.

How companies can limit their copper risks

Companies respond to volatile metal prices with different strategies. For larger requirements, longer-term supply contracts or price adjustment clauses can help cushion strong fluctuations. Early volume hedging and distributing purchasing across several suppliers can also reduce procurement risks.

For companies that are particularly copper-intensive, hedging raw material prices via futures and financial instruments is also an option. The prerequisite for this, however, is as precise an overview as possible of future material requirements. Strategic copper purchasing is thus increasingly becoming a combination of demand planning, supplier management and risk management.

A historical roller coaster ride

The current surge is impressive, but the copper price has already experienced several extreme fluctuations over the past 25 years. After the bursting of the dot-com bubble, the price plunged in 2001 and 2002 to 1,300 to 1,500 USD per ton - the result of a weak global economy, an oversupply from the 1990s and a flight of capital into safer investments.

From 2003 onward, China's economic transformation then drove the price to a new level: In July 2008, copper reached a then all-time high of 8,940 USD per ton before the global financial crisis caused the price to collapse by more than 68 % to 2,825 USD by December 2008. The recovery followed promptly: China's billion-dollar stimulus program drove the price to just under 10,000 USD per ton by 2011, before an oversupply and China's slowing growth pushed the price back down to around 4,500 USD between 2011 and 2016.

The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 also caused a brief but severe slump to around 5,000 US dollars per ton before new Chinese economic stimulus programs and worldwide stimulus packages catapulted the price to over 10,000 USD by 2021. In the years from 2021 to 2025, copper ultimately established itself as a strategic raw material: Despite volatility caused by the Ukraine war and trade conflicts, the price mostly fluctuated between 9,000 and 10,000 USD before rising in 2025 under the influence of the first US tariff measures and growing energy transition demand to almost 15,000 USD per ton.

Tight mine supply, but still no copper deficit

Despite the strained supply of copper concentrate, there has so far still been no general deficit of refined copper on the world market in 2026.

The International Copper Study Group (ICSG) expects global mine production of around 23.56 million tons for the full year, which is 1.6% more than in 2025. By contrast, production of refined copper is expected to rise by only 0.4% to 28.76 million tons. This is offset by expected refined copper consumption of 28.66 million tons. Arithmetically, this results in at least a small surplus of 96,000 tons for 2026. As recently as October 2025, the ICSG had expected a deficit of 150,000 tons.

Where is the journey headed? The experts' forecasts

Most market observers agree: The copper price is likely to remain high in the long term, even if short-term corrections are possible at any time. Several factors argue for a persistently high price level: New mine projects require five to ten years until commissioning, declining ore grades continue to make production more expensive, and political risks, for example in Chile or the DR Congo, could place an additional burden on production. On the demand side, BloombergNEF expects copper demand for power grids to be 40 % higher by 2030, while by 2030 up to 30 % of all new cars sold could be electric - with corresponding consequences for copper consumption. Added to this is the growing importance of AI data centers as well as the role of copper as a kind of “digital gold" that investors use as a store of value in uncertain times.

The major banks and research firms provide concrete figures, with in some cases significantly different assessments for 2026: J.P. Morgan expects an annual average of 12.075 USD, citing a deficit of 330.000 tons of refined copper. Finanzradar, by contrast, assumes a level of up to 15.400 USD per ton.

However, there are also signs pointing to a possible price decline: Goldman Sachs itself had at times expected a supply surplus of 500,000 tons for 2025, which could dampen the price in the short term, as could a possible weakening of Chinese demand as a result of the real estate crisis there. A general economic slowdown, for example due to high interest rates in the USA or the eurozone, could also slow infrastructure investments and weaken industrial demand. From a chart-technical perspective, the 15,150 USD per ton mark is considered psychological resistance.

Conclusion

The copper price is at the beginning of a new era. Whereas in the past it was driven primarily by industrialization and speculation, today it is above all structural factors that determine the price: a supply that can hardly be expanded quickly enough, persistently high demand driven by the energy transition, e-mobility and digitalization, as well as geopolitics that is increasingly making copper a strategic raw material.

The current rally is therefore no coincidence, but the result of an interplay of scarcity, demand and political uncertainty. Short-term corrections nevertheless remain possible - if the global economy cools down or China curbs its demand, the price could temporarily decline. In the long term, however, copper is regarded by many market observers as one of the most exciting raw materials of the coming decades.