Benchmark three-month futures on the LME gained as much as 0.8% to reach $14,533 a ton, beating the previous record set in January, before paring some of those advances.
Copper's 17% advance this year — and 47% over the past 12 months — has been underpinned by a long-term mismatch in supply and demand. The world's ageing fleet of big mines is struggling to keep pace with usage from data centers, renewable energy and power grids — a backdrop trumpeted by copper bulls for years.
But shorter-term factors have come to the fore — especially the hundreds of thousands of tons shipped to the US this year by traders seeking to profit from higher prices there. The market is still pricing in the possibility of tariffs on primary copper imports, some two months after the Department of Commerce was due to issue a report to the White House advising on whether the levies are necessary.
