The Copper Price Is Expected To Reach $15,000 Per Ton Within The Next 2 To 3 Years.

London, April 23rd (Argus) - The benchmark copper price on the London Metal Exchange (LME) is likely to reach the level of $15,000 per ton within the next 24-36 months, as stated by Mark Christoff, the CEO of the trading company Traxys Group, at the FT Global Commodities Summit held in Lausanne. Costas Bintas, the global metals business director of the trading company Mercuria, added that this year's copper price exceeding $13,000 per ton is in line with the company's prediction. This is mainly due to China's stockpiling, the new strategy-driven push from the United States, and the increasingly significant role of purchase agreements in binding copper to specific industrial policies, which have collectively pushed up the strategic premium of copper. Experts at the summit in Lausanne stated that copper has entered a new pricing mechanism, where strategic demand, sulfur risks, and national reserve storage are equally important as traditional cyclical indicators. Even though global visible inventories still stand at approximately 19-20 million tons, copper now carries a structural premium. Ivan Petev, the global head of basic metals at the trading company Gunvor Group, pointed out that copper is no longer just "the copper doctor" - that is, a barometer of construction and manufacturing activities, but a true "policy metal". With policy, strategic inventory building, and demand driven by artificial intelligence changing the market clearing mechanism, the old relationship between visible inventories and prices has been broken. This view is particularly evident in the data center and power grid sectors. Representatives at the summit learned that only data centers could potentially bring an additional 2-3 million tons of copper demand in the next decade, while power grid upgrades and power connections would require an additional 7-8 million tons. Experts believe that this makes copper structurally more valuable, regardless of how the Western economic growth rate fluctuates in the short term. Even if some traditional demand indicators perform differently, the structural transformation in the copper market still supports the price to remain at a high level. The spokesperson pointed out that about a quarter of China's copper demand has historically been related to real estate, although the real estate industry has significantly weakened, the copper price is still close to historical highs. This means that new demand channels such as artificial intelligence, electrification, military, and strategic reserves are increasingly offsetting the old cyclical drag. The spokesperson and other market participants also made it clear that the supply side remains the bigger problem. Large mining groups stated that the industry is facing issues such as declining ore grades, significant increases in capital requirements, and long-term delays in permit approvals. Rio Tinto's chief commercial officer in Australia, Brian Keenan, said that the average copper grade has significantly decreased, and mining companies process ore with grades typically close to 0.5%, which means that the amount of rock needed to be mined, crushed, and processed for each ton of metal produced has increased significantly, thereby pushing up costs and delivery cycles. Currently, this structural tension is intertwined with input risk factors, where sulfur and sulfuric acid are key hidden constraints for copper, especially for solvent extraction-electrolysis (SX-EW) production in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Chile. The US bank Goldman Sachs raised its 2026 copper price forecast to $12,650 per ton (based on expected oversupply), but warned that supply disruptions of sulfur and sulfuric acid could threaten supply in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Chile. The SX-EW production accounts for about 17% of global copper supply, and a long-term disruption could lead to a reduction of approximately 125,000 tons in production in the Democratic Republic of Congo, while China's acid export ban could pose a risk to approximately 200,000 tons of production in the second half of the year.