Copper Prices continue their journey north
Prices for the red metal have been on a run since March already.
Jörg P. SchulteOctober 5, 2026
A good part of the bull's history for copper this year has been supply-side fear. The world's largest mines are in South America, which has suffered a catastrophic coronavirus infection. It is true that China's recovery played a role in the case of the upswing. As did the role of copper in the growing electric vehicle (EV) market and the weak US dollar that has driven all commodities high. However, a comparison of copper with aluminum shows that the latter only rose in relation to the weakening dollar. Meanwhile, copper has risen much faster since the March lows. From April to date, aluminum has increased about 20%, largely due to the weakening dollar and recovering Chinese demand that is sucking in imports. But copper is up about 33%, driven by the same momentum but with the added fear of supply-side risk from major suppliers in South America. When you factor in population size, Peru and Ecuador were two of the countries hit hardest by my infections. Both countries have more than 1,000 surplus deaths per million people. The two Latin American countries also have the highest percentage of surplus deaths - surplus deaths expressed as the percentage of normal deaths over the same period - suggesting that the impact on their economies, health systems and work practices may be even more severe than that official statistics suggest. Developing countries like Peru cannot afford prolonged or repeated lockdowns. As in India, South Africa and many other countries, containment is local at best and non-existent at worst. Still, some copper producers have handled the situation remarkably well, and their performance tends to undermine the copper market's supply anxiety. Chile has maintained production in most of its copper mines. So far, Chile has seen relatively low infection rates among the mining communities. In the first half of the current year, Chile's copper production totaled 2.9 million tons, Resourceworld reported. This corresponds to an increase of 3.7% compared to the same period last year. It is noteworthy that the volume of copper production in the country remains stable despite the general decline in general industrial production in Chile, which was -9%. Most mining companies have quickly taken appropriate sanitation measures. Despite the protests by the unions, the measures were largely successful. State-owned Codelco, the world's largest copper producer, increased its production by 4.7% year-on-year in the first six months of 2020. Meanwhile, at the end of August, the population of Chile had more than 400,000 infections and more than 10,000 deaths. However, not all mines are created equal. Some projects have been suspended in recent months, the article reports, including Chuquicamata, one of the largest copper mines in the country. The mine produces more than 320,000 tons of copper per year. Even in Peru, which was badly hit by the pandemic, copper production has at least risen sharply, with the July figure quoted by BN Americas at 199,000 tons, only 2% less than in the same month last year.
