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Xinyi Wu

Copper prices have surged to an all-time high on the London Metal Exchange (LME) amid anticipations of potential US tariffs and a tightening supply crunch, with analysts expecting prices to remain elevated in the short term.
Benchmark three-month copper futures closed at US$14,510 a tonne on Monday, after rising to a record high of US$14,533 a tonne earlier in the session, surpassing the previous record set in January.
The rally came with the market widely expecting the United States to expand tariffs to imports of refined copper starting next year, analysts at China Asset Management wrote in a note on Tuesday.
“This expectation has prompted American buyers to stockpile before restrictions take effect,” the analysts said, triggering what they described as an early “transpacific and transatlantic scramble for copper”.
This has driven a sharp divergence in global inventories, according to the note, with inventories on New York’s Commodity Exchange (Comex) rising significantly, while LME inventories have fallen to a near five-month low. Inventories in Shanghai Futures Exchange warehouses have also dropped to their lowest level since 2024.
The surge of shipments to the US is also driven by price differentials between New York and London contracts, with elevated premiums on Comex futures creating a lucrative arbitrage window.
“As long as the [US’] refined-copper tariff policy is not finalised, the Comex-LME price spread will continue to offer event-driven trading opportunities,” Cinda Futures analysts Lou Jiahao and Ma Ziyao wrote in a research note on Tuesday.
They noted, however, that elevated Comex inventories were providing a buffer against future demand, and that subsequent stockpiling by US buyers might experience slight, phased fluctuations.


A key material used in a broad range of industries, including electronics and clean energy, copper has seen its price increase by about 16 per cent on the LME this year. Amid an artificial intelligence boom, the global roll-out of related infrastructure – including data centres and power grids – has strengthened demand.
The rally has continued in the two months since the US Department of Commerce was due to submit a report to the White House on whether to proceed with previously proposed tariffs of 15 per cent on refined-copper imports starting in January, rising to 30 per cent from 2028.
Meanwhile, supply constraints in Chile, the world’s largest copper producer, have also pushed prices higher.
Chilean state copper agency Cochilco last month noted that the country’s production of the metal was expected to fall 2.6 per cent this year to 5.27 million tonnes. Exports from the country last month fell 14 per cent in value terms from July and were down 3.2 per cent from a year earlier, according to data from the Chilean central bank.
Extreme weather in the last two months has disrupted mining operations and shipping in South America, although outbound volumes have since begun to recover, according to the analysts from Cinda Futures.
Low inventories and expectations of a peak season through October were set to keep the copper supply tight in the short term, Lou and Ma said.
Beyond October, support for prices was expected to weaken marginally, as interrupted mining operations resume and US stockpiling demand moderates slightly, the two noted.
“In the long term, insufficient global capital expenditure on copper mines and declining grades at older mines will keep supply elasticity low over the next one to two years, while emerging demand – from power grids, energy storage, new-energy infrastructure, and AI data centres – remains in an expansionary cycle,” they said.


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Inventories of the metal are diverging across major exchanges as AI infrastructure build-up spurs demand and potential trade restrictions keep prices elevated


Inventories of the metal are diverging across major exchanges as AI infrastructure build-up spurs demand and potential trade restrictions keep prices elevated.


Copper rally sets record price on LME as US tariff fears fuel ‘scramble’ for stockpiles

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Inventories of the metal are diverging across major exchanges as AI infrastructure build-up spurs demand and potential trade restrictions keep prices elevated

Inventories of the metal are diverging across major exchanges as AI infrastructure build-up spurs demand and potential trade restrictions keep prices elevated