Global copper prices hit a fresh record, rising to $14,635 a ton. Bloomberg reports that the rally was driven by acute physical tightness, compounded by expectations that the United States will impose duties on refined metal imports. Overall, the industrial metal has gained roughly 17% year-to-date, extending the highs set in December and January.
The fundamental driver remains a long‑term structural imbalance between restrained mine production and massive demand from AI data centers, renewable energy equipment manufacturers, and grid operators. On Bloomberg TV, Evi Hambro, head of thematic and sector investments at BlackRock International, said the market is extremely strained and that the scale of raw‑material supply disruptions far exceeds typical averages.
Additional upward pressure reflects the approach of seasonal peaks: in China—the world’s key copper consumer—manufacturing utilization is expected to rise. Under these conditions, commodity analysts generally agree that the rally will continue and that breaching the next psychological threshold of $15,000 a ton is a matter of near‑term prospects.
