When Will Copper Prices Go Up?

Copper price chart, Q1 2003 to Q4 2025.

Chart from International Monetary Fund via FRED.

Copper had pulled back to about US$8,000 by mid-August 2022 on growing fears of a global recession. In early 2023, prices mounted a campaign to breach the US$9,300 level, once again giving market watchers a reason to believe highs for the metal would soon to be retested.

However, that reason soon faded as rising interest rates dampened the outlook for copper-dependent industries globally. China’s ongoing real estate crisis also hit copper demand hard in 2023. With the demand picture unclear, copper couldn’t hold above the US$9,000 level, and slid to US$7,910 as of early October 2023.

However, copper managed to close the year around the US$8,500 mark and hold around those levels in Q1. The closure of First Quantum Minerals’ (TSX:FM,OTCPL:FQVLF) Cobre Panama copper mine in late 2023 and Anglo American’s (LSE:AAL,OTCQX:NGLOY) revised 2024 copper production target were significant factors behind copper’s price momentum, as were production curbs out of top Chinese copper smelters are also helping to support prices.

The copper price began climbing in earnest in Q2 on building anticipation that the Federal Reserve may soon launch its rate cut cycle alongside a worsening supply side picture. On May 20, 2024, the price of copper reached its then highest recorded price of US$5.20 per pound, or US$11,464 per metric ton.

However, the price of the base metal moved back under US$10,000 by the end of the month, and remained largely rangebound through the rest of the year.

In 2025, copper tariff fears and supply disruptions pushed the price of copper upwards, and it reached record highs of US$13,842.50 on the LME in late January 2026.

Copper prices pulled back to below US$13,000 in the days that followed, and as low as US$12,560 by mid-month.

However, demand sectors for the red metal may face fresh uncertainty in 2026 after the Supreme Court of the United States found Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs unconstitutional.

Although the ruling won’t affect copper tariffs directly, it may cause some economic chaos as countries that worked out deals reconsider their agreements. Following the ruling, Trump imposed new 10 percent tariffs on February 20, then raised them to 15 percent the next day. The new levies will only be in effect for 150 days, after which they will need to be ratified by Congress.

The copper price climbed above US$13,200 during trading in the days that followed.

Despite short-term uncertainty, is long-term optimism for copper still warranted? Let’s look at the current supply and demand factors that could push copper prices higher.

Green energy in driver’s seat for copper demand

Copper’s many useful properties have translated into demand from diverse industries in both traditional and emerging sectors.

In its January 2026 “Copper in the Age of AI” study, S&P Global Energy and Market Intelligence outlined key areas for copper demand and growth. Central to everything is the role copper plays in electrification due to a conductivity rating that’s second only to silver.

Traditional demand sectors such as construction, electronic appliances and internal combustion engine vehicles have long been the main drivers for core copper demand. According to the report, 18 million metric tons of copper were required to meet this core economic demand in 2025, and the analysts forecast that number to rise to 23 million by 2040.

Growth in core demand is expected to be driven by a combination of urbanization and rising incomes in the developing world. Every new power source, every new home and every new air conditioner is connected to the grid in some way.

Overall, China is the world’s largest copper consumer, due in large part to its construction and real estate sectors. However, growth there has slowed in recent years as its property sector has stalled following the collapse of several large developers. The government has responded with a series of measures to try to stimulate the sector, but has yet to right the ship.

At the end of 2025, China released its 14th Five-Year Plan, which the country will implement from 2026 to 2031. The plan has measures aimed at the real estate sector including affordable housing, the rental market and urban renewal. While it remains to be seen if these will be successful, any turnaround in China’s real estate sector could have a considerable impact on copper demand.

Although aluminum is being substituted in some use cases due to high copper prices, there are technical hurdles such as the need for systems to be redesigned and aluminum’s lower conductivity.

In addition to traditional growth, demand is being driven by the energy transition, including energy additions in developing nations, clean energy technologies and electric vehicles.

As a base case, S&P expects global electricity demand to increase 50 percent by 2040, with the United States’ demand growing by 2.5 percent annually, China’s by 3.2 percent and India’s by 4.2 percent.

This demand growth will require the energy equivalent of building 330 new hydroelectric dams the size of Nevada’s Hoover Dam or 650 1 gigawatt nuclear reactors each year between now and then.

In 2025, solar and wind combined for more than 90 percent of new electrical capacity installed worldwide. These methods require substantial quantities of copper to build out, as do the batteries used to store the energy needed to ensure 24 hour delivery.

Additionally, expanding access to commercial energy in developing nations will also require significant copper for infrastructure, energy transmission and more. S&P notes that Africa is home to nearly 20 percent of the world’s population, but its electricity needs are underserved. Copper will play an essential role in moving electricity across the continent.

Downstream from generation, there is an increasing demand for EVs, which have significantly higher copper loadings than their gas-powered counterparts. In 2025, global EV sales grew by 20 percent to 20.7 million, and although the pace is likely to slow, overall demand is expected to continue to grow in the coming years.

The AI sector is another emerging demand sector for copper, as it requires vast amounts of the red metal to deliver the energy to power data centers and manufacture the hardware that its operations run on.

The S&P noted that half of the US gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2025 was owed to AI. This includes processors, data centers, and electrical capacity. The study also stated that AI power requirements alone will rise from 5 percent of total US electrical demand in 2025 to 14 percent by 2030, before demand from industrial, commercial, creative and personal applications are accounted for.

Factoring in demand from these industries and the defense sector raises 2025’s copper requirements from 18 million to 28 million metric tons, according to S&P. As these sectors grow, total copper demand is expected to hit 42 million metric tons by 2040.

Companies struggling to keep copper supply coming

Of course, demand is just one side of the story for copper prices. For more than a decade, the world’s largest copper mines have struggled with steadily declining copper grades and a lack of new copper discoveries.

However, the challenge is that without new mining operations, total mined copper supply is set to rise from 23 million metric tons today to a peak of 27 million in 2030, but decline to 22 million metric tons in 2040.

Although recycled copper is expected to add an additional 10 million metric tons of supply in 2040, this still leaves a supply deficit of 10 million metric tons.

Declining grades at existing mines are just part of the problem facing the supply side of the equation. Since the end of the last commodity super cycle in 2011, exploration budgets have cratered from US$6.6 billion in 2012 to US$3.3 billion in 2025, and nearly half of that is spent on existing mine sites.

According to S&P, the number of new discoveries and quantity of resources has also fallen. Between 1985 and 2000, 636 million metric tons of copper resources were discovered; this fell to 389 million metric tons between 2000 and 2010, and further to 120 million metric tons between 2010 and 2020.

The general consensus is that the easy-to-access deposits have been found, leaving harder to access ore bodies that require longer permitting times and higher capital costs.

Speaking about copper at the Vancouver Resources Investment Conference (VRIC) in January 2026, Founder of Rule Investment Media, Rick Rule, said, “There’s still more to be found, but it’s going to be found undercover. Let’s just say they’re pretty far off the highway. When we start spending money, we will find copper, but we haven’t started to spend money.”

Rule went on to explain that there are challenges beyond just the money, noting jurisdictional and permitting issues. He cited the example of Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO,NYSE:RIO,LSE:RIO) and BHP’s (ASX:BHP,NYSE:BHP,LSE:BHP) Resolution Copper in Arizona, which has been stuck in permitting for 28 years.

Delays and lack of exploration are critical factors hindering copper supply growth. On top of this, over the last several years there have also been unforeseen events that have taken supply off the market.

These have included sociopolitical unrest and protests directed at the mining sector in Peru in 2022, the closure of First Quantum’s Cobre Panama in 2023, and, most recently, accidents at two of the world’s largest copper mines in 2025, Ivanhoe Mines’ (TSX:IVN,OTCQX:IVPAF) Kamoa-Kakula in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Freeport McMoRan’s Grasberg in Indonesia.

Even though these types of events can’t be predicted, any supply disruptions will have an outsized impact as the supply gap widens.

“Really, last year the market was close to equilibrium, but all the charts going forward were this widening supply gap. We’re there now. And last year we had so many major disruptions that it was nowhere near equilibrium,’ Independent Speculator CEO Lobo Tiggre said at VRIC.

Bull market for copper or bust?

So, when will copper go up? Together, strong demand and tight supply have already created the right market environment for higher prices, though market watchers like Rule and Tiggre still see more upside potential.

Copper’s strong rally in recent years has encouraged the idea that even higher copper prices are ahead, which could be a golden opportunity for junior copper companies in the long-term.

With deficits expected to increase over the coming years, analysts are setting new target prices for LME copper. The Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) raised its expectations to an average US$11,313 per metric ton in 2026, and US$13,501 in 2027. Meanwhile, Citigroup (NYSE:C) is even more bullish, predicting copper prices could climb as high as US$15,000 per metric ton as early as the second quarter of 2026.

A widening supply gap should provide significant tailwinds in the coming years, potentially sending prices even higher.

“Copper has done fairly well, but for most of the year, copper seemed really strangely muted in terms of price increase, and make no mistake, a supply shortfall is absolutely inevitable in copper,” Rule said.

Price increases should also stimulate capital inflows into the industry, which Rule noted would need US$250 billion over the next 10 years to maintain the current level of production. To grow beyond that would require a much larger investment.