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Glossary | Copper
What is Copper?
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Copper is one of the world's most important industrial metals and a foundational material for electrification. It is essential for power generation, transmission, electric vehicles, renewable energy, construction, and electronics. As the global energy transition accelerates, copper demand is set to grow significantly, with supply struggling to keep pace.
Why is copper so critical to the global economy?
The copper market is vast, global, and increasingly strategic. Prices respond sharply to changes in:
Mine supply
Project delays
Energy costs
Downstream demand
Understanding copper's supply chain, from large-scale open-pit mines in Chile to smelters and fabricators across Asia, is critical for anyone operating in metals, energy, or industrial markets.
What makes copper essential for electrification?
Copper (Cu, atomic number 29) is a base metal prized for its excellent electrical and thermal conductivity, corrosion resistance, and ductility. These properties make it indispensable for carrying electricity efficiently, which is why copper sits at the heart of modern infrastructure.
Unlike lithium, copper is widely recyclable and can be reused indefinitely without losing performance. In nature, copper occurs in sulphide and oxide ores, most commonly chalcopyrite, bornite, and malachite. After mining, copper ore is processed into concentrate, then refined into high-purity copper cathode with a typical purity of 99.99%.
Refined copper is sold as cathode or billet and then fabricated into wire rod, tubes, sheets, and alloys. Electrical applications dominate demand, while construction, machinery, and transport remain core end markets. As electrification accelerates, copper's role becomes even more critical.
Copper in electric vehicles and the energy transition
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Copper is vital to the energy transition, supporting electrification across transport, power and grids. Its high conductivity, durability and recyclability make it essential for efficient electricity transmission and use
How do EVs, charging and renewables drive copper demand?
Electric vehicles are one of the most copper-intensive demand sources a battery electric vehicle contains approximately 60–70 kg of copper, compared with 20–25 kg in a conventional internal combustion engine vehicle.
Copper is used extensively in electric motors:
Inverters
Wiring harnesses
Battery connections
Onboard charging systems
As global EV sales continue to grow, this intensity translates into substantial incremental demand.
Beyond vehicles themselves, charging infrastructure adds another layer of copper consumption. Fast chargers, grid connections, transformers, and cabling are all copper-heavy. A single public fast-charging station can contain several hundred kilograms of copper once upstream grid upgrades are included.
Renewable energy is equally copper-intensive:
Onshore wind installations require roughly 3–4 tonnes of copper per megawatt
Offshore wind can exceed 8 tonnes per megawatt due to longer cabling distances and a more expansive network of array cables linking turbines
Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems use copper in inverters, transformers, and extensive cabling networks. As renewable capacity expands to meet decarbonisation targets, copper demand from power generation continues to rise.
Why are power grids central to future copper demand?
Power grids are the biggest driver of copper demand, as electrification requires major investment in networks, substations, transformers and interconnectors. As a result, copper is becoming a strategic material, with supply increasingly critical to decarbonisation and defence.
Copper supply chain: mature but strained
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The copper supply chain is one of the most established in the metals industry, yet it is increasingly under strain. Decades of investment have created a global network of large-scale mines, smelters, refineries, fabricators, and end users. However, structural challenges across each stage of the chain are now colliding with accelerating demand from electrification and the energy transition.
Where is copper mined and what are the challenges?
Copper mining is highly concentrated - Chile and Peru together account for roughly 40% of global mine supply, with additional output from the Democratic Republic of Congo, China, the United States, and Australia.
Most production comes from large, capital-intensive open-pit operations, many of which are ageing. Declining ore grades are a persistent issue, forcing miners to move more material to produce the same amount of copper, increasing costs, water use, and energy intensity.
Is smelting and refining a bottleneck?
After extraction, copper ore is processed into concentrate and shipped to smelters. Smelting and refining capacity is even more concentrated than mining, with China dominating global throughput despite importing the majority of its raw material. Unlike mining, smelting is not currently a bottleneck for the copper market, following significant capacity additions in recent years that have expanded global smelting capability well ahead of concentrate supply growth.
How does copper reach end-use markets?
Refined copper is produced as cathode and then fabricated into semi-finished products such as wire rod, tube, and sheet. These products flow into construction, power infrastructure, transport, and manufacturing supply chains worldwide. While fabrication is geographically diverse, it remains sensitive to power costs and industrial policy, particularly in energy-intensive regions.
Can recycling and investment meet future demand?
Recycling plays a critical role, accounting for roughly 30% of global copper supply. Secondary copper reduces pressure on mined supply, but scrap availability is limited by long product lifecycles. As electrification accelerates, demand is rising faster than scrap can return to the system.
The result is a mature but stressed supply chain. New capacity exists, but it is slow to develop, increasingly expensive, and vulnerable to disruption. Without sustained investment across mining, smelting, and refining, copper supply will struggle to keep pace with structural demand growth.
Copper costs: COMEX, LME and China premium
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Copper pricing is global, transparent, and deeply interconnected with financial markets. The London Metal Exchange (LME) and the COMEX division of CME Group serve as the primary reference points for copper prices worldwide, while regional premiums reflect local supply-demand balances and logistics.
How do LME, COMEX and China set copper prices?
The LME copper price is the global benchmark, used for physical contracts, hedging, and indexation across most international trade. It reflects expectations around global economic growth, mine supply, inventories, and macroeconomic conditions. COMEX copper, quoted in US cents per pound, plays a similar role in North America and is closely correlated with LME prices, though short-term spreads can open due to regional market dynamics.
In China, the world's largest copper consumer, pricing includes a physical premium over the exchange price. The China copper premium reflects domestic demand strength, import availability, inventory levels, and logistical constraints. When Chinese demand is strong or import flows tighten, premiums rise, signalling physical market tightness even if headline exchange prices appear stable.
What drives copper costs and market signals?
Treatment and refining charges also influence costs across the supply chain. These charges, paid by miners to smelters and refiners, fluctuate based on concentrate availability and processing capacity. Low treatment charges indicate tight concentrate markets, often coinciding with mine disruptions or slower supply growth.
Energy costs, labour, and environmental compliance are becoming increasingly important cost drivers, particularly for smelting and refining. As decarbonisation policies tighten, producers face higher operating costs, which ultimately feed through to refined copper pricing.
Together, exchange prices and regional premiums provide a real-time picture of copper market conditions. Understanding how COMEX, LME, and China premiums interact is essential for assessing true copper costs and identifying early signals of tightening or loosening supply.
Copper market outlook
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Will copper supply meet future demand?
Current mine pipelines are unlikely to meet demand beyond the late 2020s. Benchmark estimates a mined supply gap of more than six million tonnes by 2035, requiring rapid development of new projects and expansions.
Why is it so difficult to develop new copper supply?
Developing new copper mines is becoming a challenge as projects are capital intensive, with investors demanding higher returns, stricter ESG compliance, and greater certainty on permitting and timelines.
Permitting remains one of the biggest obstacles. New copper projects face extended approval processes, environmental opposition, and community engagement challenges. Lead times routinely exceed 15 years, limiting the industry's ability to respond quickly to rising demand.
Geopolitical risk is adding uncertainty, as many major copper resources sit in unstable jurisdictions or face changing fiscal regimes.
What happens if supply falls short?
While recycling and efficiency improvements will help, they are unlikely to replace the need for substantial new mine supply. If supply fails to keep pace with demand, copper prices are likely to rise and become more volatile, increasing costs across the energy transition.
Ensuring sufficient copper supply is therefore becoming a strategic priority for governments and industry alike and whether the industry can deliver enough new capacity in time will be one of the defining questions for the global metals market this decade
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General FAQs
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Contact UsWhy is copper used in batteries and EVs?
Why is copper used in batteries and EVs?
Copper is used in batteries and electric vehicles because of its exceptional electrical conductivity, durability, and thermal performance. In EVs, copper enables efficient power transfer in battery connections, electric motors, inverters, and wiring systems. Its ability to carry high currents with minimal energy loss makes it essential for maximising vehicle range and performance. Copper is also highly recyclable, supporting sustainability goals across the electric vehicle supply chain.