Copper prices hit a record on the London Metal Exchange in September 2026 - over $14,800 a tonne - driven mainly by U.S. buyers stockpiling metal ahead of a po…
Copper had already been mined and used for thousands of years, but the rapid buildout of power generation, transmission, telegraph and telephone networks after 1900 chan…
Electrification spread from cities into suburbs and rural areas, appliances and telephone networks multiplied, and post-war reconstruction plus the housing boom that fol…
Large-scale porphyry copper mining expanded significantly in Chile and Peru, while the Copperbelt straddling Zambia and DR Congo (then Zaire) became a major global sourc…
Chile nationalised its major copper mines, including Chuquicamata, consolidating state ownership under what became Corporación Nacional del Cobre (Codelco) in 1976. This…
China's rapid urbanisation, housing construction, manufacturing expansion and power-grid buildout drove copper demand into a sustained global commodity supercycle. China…
Copper prices collapsed alongside global industrial demand during the 2008-09 financial crisis, then recovered as stimulus spending - notably China's - rebuilt demand. T…
Solar, wind, EVs, charging infrastructure and grid-scale battery storage began scaling meaningfully through the 2010s, each adding copper demand at a different intensity…
LME three-month copper hit an intraday record of $14,858.50 a tonne on 10 September 2026, driven mainly by U.S. buyers stockpiling ahead of a possible refined-copper tar…
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