India’s cable and wire industry is expected to achieve around 30% revenue growth in the coming fiscal year, supported by infrastructure investment, manufacturing expansion, and construction activity. Industry groups said higher copper and aluminum prices are increasing costs but also lifting selling prices. Continued investments in grid modernization and renewable energy are expected to drive stronger copper consumption. Analysts see India emerging as a major contributor to global copper demand growth.

CopperTech Metals filed for a U.S. IPO on June 2 as it seeks to benefit from rising global copper demand. The company, formed around Vedanta’s Konkola Copper Mines operations in Zambia, reported revenue of $1.33 billion for fiscal 2026, up sharply from $398 million a year earlier. CopperTech said IPO proceeds will support production expansion and exploration activities tied to growing demand from AI data centers, energy transition projects, and defense industries. Investors increasingly see future copper supply as a strategic growth theme.

Teck Resources warned that rising diesel and freight costs could increase spending at its Chilean copper mining operations during Q2, as global supply tightened. The Canadian mining company said its Chilean operations relied on imported diesel and faced higher fuel and transportation costs due to supply disruptions related to the Strait of Hormuz, although no severe shortages were expected. "We expect freight costs to continue rising in Q2 2026, with explosives costs also increasing accordingly. We will continue to closely monitor developments, such as potential product export bans by major supplying countries, which could further disrupt the market," the company said. The warning highlighted broader supply chain pressures and the risk that government intervention could tighten metals markets, potentially prompting enterprises and strategic stockpiling of copper and zinc as demand strengthened. Alongside the cost warning, the company reported strong Q1 results that exceeded analyst expectations. This was primarily driven by higher copper prices, record sales, and increased production at its flagship mine, Quebrada Blanca (QB), in northern Chile. Production at the newly expanded mine grew 31.2% to 55,500 mt, compared with just 42,300 mt a year earlier when output was constrained by prolonged shutdowns. Despite a maintenance shutdown at the start of the year, performance remained on par with the previous quarter. Total copper production in Q1 reached 140,000 mt, compared with 106,100 mt in the same period last year. The company still plans to produce 455,000 to 530,000 mt in 2026 and 505,000 to 580,000 mt in 2027, while 2025 production is expected to be 453,500 mt, with the QB project expected to contribute 200,000 to 235,000 mt next year. Driven by growing power demand from data centers, artificial intelligence, and national defense, as well as expanding investment in power grid and electronic infrastructure, global copper demand is expected to surge 50% by 2040, benefiting Teck and its peers. Concentrates zinc production fell to 120,300 mt, a decrease of 17,000 mt from the same period last year. (Wenhua Consolidated)

Australian mining company BHP has outlined a global pipeline of copper projects that could expand its production capacity by 1.8–2 million tonnes over the next decade, in response to rising global demand. BHP also projects that global copper demand will increase from approximately 34 million tonnes per year in 2026 to more than 50 million tonnes by 2050.

SMM Morning Meeting Summary: Overnight, LME copper opened at $11,816/mt. After dipping to $11,798/mt in early trading, its center rose sharply to a high of $12,395/mt, then hovered at highs, and finally closed at $12,221/mt, up 3.27%. Trading volume reached 52,000 lots, and open interest stood at 292,000 lots, down 944 lots from the previous trading day, mainly reflecting bears cutting positions overall. Overnight, the most-traded SHFE copper 2605 contract opened at 95,010 yuan/mt. After the opening, its center moved higher to a high of 95,900 yuan/mt, after which copper prices maintained a fluctuating trend at highs. Near the close, it dipped to 94,530 yuan/mt and finally closed at 93,840 yuan/mt, up 2.12%. Trading volume reached 120,000 lots, and open interest stood at 198,000 lots, down 6,741 lots from the previous trading day, mainly reflecting bears cutting positions throughout the day.

LONDON/SYDNEY, Jan 8 (Reuters) - Glencore (GLEN.L), opens new tab and Rio Tinto (RIO.L), opens new tab said late on Thursday they were in early buyout talks that could potentially create the world's largest mining company with a combined market value of nearly $207 billion.

The installation of centralized energy storage systems in North America is accelerating. Samsung SDI announced that its US subsidiary (SDI America • SDIA) has signed an agreement with a US energy infrastructure development and operation company to supply LFP batteries for its energy storage systems, with a contract value exceeding KRW 2 trillion. The surge in the ESS sector this year has driven copper demand growth, with SMM forecasting global copper demand for ESS to increase by over 50% YoY in 2025.

As the global energy transition accelerates, the imbalance between copper supply and demand is becoming increasingly prominent. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA)'s "Net Zero Emissions 2050 Scenario," half of copper demand will be used for clean energy technologies by 2040, and global copper demand is projected to increase by over 50% by 2050. Clean energy power systems demand copper 6-12 times more than fossil fuel-based systems, while a single electric vehicle uses 2-3 times more copper than a traditional fuel vehicle. However, significantly increasing copper mining in the short term faces numerous challenges: On the one hand, the development cycle of deep mines is lengthy; on the other hand, the approval process for new mines is slow. Furthermore, the quality of copper ore in existing mines continues to decline, leading to rising energy and water consumption during mining. Amidst this increasingly pronounced imbalance between copper supply and demand, recycling and reuse may become a key path to a breakthrough.

On July 31 (Thursday), driven by billions of dollars in global investments aimed at modernizing and expanding power grids to meet the substantial electricity demand required by the digital and clean energy revolution, the growth rate of copper demand has exceeded industry expectations. Meanwhile, supply from major producing countries, including Chile and the DRC, has been constrained by insufficient investment in new mines, which will keep prices elevated for an extended period. Some analysts predict that copper prices will reach a record high above $12,000 per ton by the end of this decade, a 23% increase from the current price level of around $9,700 per ton. Consumers are seeking substitutes, but copper's superior conductivity, durability, and multipurpose nature make it difficult to replace. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), power grid investments alone are expected to exceed $400 billion this year, after reaching a record high of $390 billion in 2024. Michael Finch, Head of Strategic Initiatives at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence (BMI), said, "The role of copper in power grid infrastructure is often severely underestimated. People recognize the need to expand power grids, but they often miscalculate the total amount of copper required for this initiative." BMI's latest forecast indicates that global copper demand for upgrading electricity production and transmission networks will increase from 12.52 million tons this year to 14.87 million tons by 2030. Data Centers and EVs Drive Power Grid Demand Michael Widmer, an analyst at Bank of America, predicts that global copper demand will increase by 10% to 30.32 million tons by 2030 compared to this year. Widmer forecasts that the global copper market shortage will reach 1.84 million tons by 2030. In regions where the number of data centers is rapidly increasing to power artificial intelligence and machine learning, the need for resilient power grids is particularly urgent. Peter Charland, Global Head of Information and Communications Technology at AECOM, a global infrastructure consulting firm, said, "Data centers for artificial intelligence and machine learning require larger, better, and more efficient computing capabilities," which means more electricity is needed. Electric vehicles (EVs) also require significantly more copper than traditional internal combustion engine vehicles. BMI predicts that copper demand from the EV sector will jump to 2.2 million tons by 2030, up from 1.2 million tons in 2025 and 204,000 tons in 2020. Maria Cristina Bifulco, Chief Investor Relations and Sustainability Officer at Prysmian Group, the world's largest copper buyer and an Italian cable producer, said, "We are transitioning from cyclical to more structural copper demand." Prysmian's procurement volume accounts for 2%-3% of global copper cathode production. The impending shortages and record-high prices of aluminum semis and fiber-optic cabling solutions have spurred a wave of innovation in related industries (such as construction and manufacturing), including measures like substitution and resource recycling, as copper costs account for a significant proportion of total production costs in these industries. Although aluminum has long been considered a cheaper alternative material, priced at about one-third of copper, its application in data center cabling has been largely abandoned. "There was a time when copper supply was in shortage, so people used aluminum cables and coated them with copper," said Charland from AECOM. He added, "Given the performance issues at that time, this situation lasted only a very short while." Recycling contributes to achieving sustainable development goals, as the energy consumption required to extract refined copper or secondary copper from scrap is 65% less than that of direct primary production. In the field of data transmission, copper has gradually been replaced by fiber-optic cables. Fiber-optic cables offer higher bandwidth and efficiency, and their material is essentially glass made from silicon in sand. "The cost of producing glass is much lower than that of mining copper," said Matt Miller, head of AECOM's Global Networks Division. "Silicon reserves are extremely abundant, and you can even pick up as much silicon as you want from the beach." However, analysts say that currently, these solutions are unlikely to alleviate copper supply shortages in the short term, especially for large-scale structural engineering projects that are crucial to the government's future economic growth prospects. (Wenhua Integrated)