Copper reached the highest price in history.
In September 2026 the price of copper on the London Metal Exchange exceeded the threshold of 14,500 dollars per tonne for the first time, and a few weeks later it approached 14,900 dollars. At the same time, the price also reached an all-time high on the New York exchange Comex. Behind this rise is a combination of several factors: growing demand, unstable production and trade tensions.
Copper is indispensable for the energy transition and for the electrification of the world. Because of its excellent conductivity, it is used in cables, electric motors, transformers and almost every electronic device. An electric vehicle contains several times more copper than a car with a petrol engine, and wind turbines, solar power plants and power grids also need large amounts. The new driver of demand comes from the huge data centres for artificial intelligence, whose construction and power supply require enormous amounts of copper.
The problem is that supply cannot keep up with this growth. A large part of the world's mines are old, and the content of copper in the ore is falling gradually, so more and more ore has to be mined for the same tonne of copper. Opening a new mine, from the discovery of the deposit to the first production, often takes more than ten years. Part of the demand is covered by recycled copper, but that is not enough. In the past year serious problems at large mines in Indonesia and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo reduced production further. According to estimates, as a result about 600,000 tonnes of copper disappear from the market every year. Some analysts warn that global mine production this year could decline for the first time since 2017. In Chile, the largest producer of copper in the world, exports of copper in August fell to their lowest level in more than a year.
The third factor is the trade policy of the USA. The US Department of Commerce proposed a tariff of 15 per cent on imports of refined copper from January 2027, which would rise to 30 per cent from 2028. The proposal still awaits approval from the president. Expecting higher tariffs, American traders in recent months imported enormous quantities of copper in advance. Thus, a large part of the world's stocks ended up in warehouses in the USA, while stocks on the London exchange are melting away. This further pushes prices upwards on other markets around the world.
Record prices bring big profits for the mining giants. The mining companies Rio Tinto, BHP and Glencore have already reported high revenues from copper. For industry and for consumers, however, more expensive copper means higher costs, and in the end also higher prices for many products.
High prices are good news also for the mine at Bučim near Radoviš, in the eastern part of the country, where copper has been mined for decades. Copper concentrate from Bučim is a significant export product of Macedonia. Nevertheless, analysts warn that prices of raw materials can fall sharply, if the trade war calms down or if the world economy slows. For now everything suggests that copper will remain one of the most sought-after metals of this century.