China’s copper stockpiles could run out in just a few months as the US hoovers up supplies of the key metal, according to a report from the Financial Times that cites experts from commodities trading house Mercuria.
Fears of US tariffs have led to a spike in demand in the US ahead of the Trump trade levies coming into force.
The diversion of copper imports to the US has seen Chinese copper stocks decline by almost 55,000 tonnes to 116,800 tonnes last week, data from the Shanghai Futures Exchange showed.
"At the current pace of draws, those Chinese inventories could deplete [to zero] by the middle of June," a metals expert at the Swiss commodities group told the newspaper.
Last week's fall was the biggest on record.
Mercuria experts said China had a "razor-thin" buffer of copper inventory to meet domestic demand.
Copper prices were up 0.8% to $4.89/lbs on Tuesday, having risen from below $4 at the start of the year to above $5.2 in late March before tumbling to just over $4 again in the days after Donald Trump announced his new tariffs.