The price of copper has surged to a new high, climbing above $11,770 a ton on the back of fresh economic support measures in China and a wave of stockpiling in the United States. The rally is rekindling expectations for the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mining sector, the world’s second-largest producer after Chile.
Copper gained as much as 1.3 percent to reach $11,771 a ton, surpassing the record set on December 7, according to Bloomberg. Beijing announced it would maintain a “more proactive” fiscal stance and a “moderately loose” monetary policy in 2025, a signal widely seen as directly supportive of industrial-metal demand.
“The Politburo’s statement signals a far more supportive macro environment than investors expected,” said Xu Wanqiu, an analyst with Cofco Futures, noting that copper is set to benefit from China’s investments in power-grid upgrades and computing capacity. China, the world’s biggest consumer of the metal, also saw a rebound in exports, pushing its annual trade surplus above $1 trillion for the first time.
Copper, essential for electrical infrastructure and the energy transition, has already risen more than 30 percent this year on the London Metal Exchange. Growing demand linked to data centers and electric vehicles is colliding with strained global supplies, a trend worsened by a series of mining disruptions.
The rally has intensified in recent weeks amid a rush of shipments to the United States, where traders expect former president Donald Trump to impose tariffs next year.
Citic Securities warns that refined copper supply could fall into a 450,000-ton deficit in 2026, partly due to U.S. stockpiling. Prices will likely need to stay above $12,000 a ton next year to draw the investment required for new mining capacity, the brokerage said.
In 2024, the Democratic Republic of Congo produced 3.3 million tons of copper, more than 11 percent of global output, according to M&B Magazine’s review of Nasdaq data. “The DRC has rapidly increased its copper output in recent years, and its 2024 production marks a sharp rise from the 2.93 million metric tons produced the year before,” the outlet noted.
One of the key drivers of that surge is Phase 3 of Ivanhoe Mines’ Kamoa-Kakula project, which achieved commercial production in August 2024. Kamoa-Kakula, a joint venture with Zijin Mining Group, produced 437,061 tons of copper in 2024, up from 393,551 tons in 2023. Ivanhoe expects another jump in output in 2025, setting its forecast between 520,000 and 580,000 tons.
M&B with Bloomberg