Soaring copper orders from South Korea and Taiwan led to the biggest rise in requests for withdrawals from London Metal Exchange warehouses since 2013, pushing copper prices to a new record high on Wednesday.
The price of copper increased by another 2.4% on the London Metal Exchange (LME) early on Wednesday, to exceed $11,400 per ton, which beat the previous record high from just two days ago.
Copper prices have jumped by around 30% so far this year, with the gains mostly occurring in the second half, amid a series of supply issues in key producing countries and speculation about potential U.S. import tariffs.
This year, copper prices have rallied amid threats from the Trump Administration to impose tariffs on the industrial metal crucial for electrification and grid expansion. Trump backed off plans for a tariff, for now, but traders are nevertheless amassing copper into the U.S., which has hiked copper prices at the Comex exchange in New York and shrunk supply elsewhere in the world.
Demand signs have become more bullish in recent weeks, with economies faring better than expected in the tariff chaos of the Trump Administration.
The price of the metal, which is used in industry, electronics, electrification, and construction, is often viewed as a gauge of economic health.
On the supply side, several accidents at mines in Chile and Indonesia earlier this year have reduced global copper production and tightened the physical market.
In recent weeks, traders have been aggressively positioning for deeper deficits next year, analysts and industry executives said at a Fastmarkets webinar last week.
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The macro trends will be key for copper markets and pose the biggest uncertainty to demand and prices in 2026, they noted.
“The macro overview matters the most, because the macro then essentially moves the demand numbers,” said Scott Crooks, principal analyst at Chile’s state copper mining giant CODELCO.
“It’s the tweets, policies that come out of different countries as they try and realign in this new world we live in. I think that is what’s really going to move the needle.”
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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