Copper has spent 2026 rewriting its own history books.
In early August, the metal pushed above $14,300 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange, a fresh all-time high extending a rally few expected to run this far, this fast.
For Jacob White, Director of ETF Product Management at Sprott Asset Management, the surprise isn't that copper is at record levels, but how long the setup has been building.
"We've been on the copper bull market story for quite a while now," White said in an interview with Proactive.
White points to a fundamental supply deficit that Sprott expects to widen rather than close. New mine supply is notoriously slow to arrive. White cited an average timeline of 17.5 years from discovery to first production, a lag that leaves the industry structurally unable to respond quickly to demand growth.
That view is echoed by Jefferies, which examined copper scarcity through the lens of how many hours of global work are required to buy a tonne of the metal. The bank found copper became steadily more abundant in the four decades before the China-driven supercycle of the early 2000s, before troughing around 2015. Since then, scarcity has been rising again, a trend it attributes to copper's growing importance in electrification.
"We see rising intensity and scarcity of copper over the next 5-10 years and expect copper prices to rise in real terms as a result," Jefferies wrote, a view underpinning its call for LME copper to settle at $8 per pound, or roughly $17,600 per tonne, by 2032.
Wood Mackenzie points to a similar bottleneck, estimating that supporting accelerated EV growth would require roughly $45 billion in additional greenfield metals investment over the next decade, with copper the most constrained link. Annual mine capacity additions would need to climb from the long-term average of around 850,000 tonnes per year to roughly 960,000 tonnes through 2040, requiring about $25 billion of that investment alone.
Much of that capital, Wood Mackenzie noted, would need to flow into higher-risk jurisdictions such as Argentina, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Pakistan. It warned that if established regions including Chile, Peru and the US don't streamline permitting and offer competitive fiscal terms, a larger share of future supply growth could shift toward state-backed Chinese entities, deepening Western exposure to that supply chain.
Tariffs adding fuel to an already tight market
Layered on top of the supply story is a wave of tariff speculation.
The current recommendation from the Commerce Secretary calls for a 15% tariff beginning January 1, 2027, though White stressed the outcome remains uncertain.
"There's a lot of actual copper being shipped into the US, and it's being taken out of the market at a time when we're already in a supply deficit," White said. "That's really exacerbating things in terms of traders thinking they may be able to get an advantageous price in the future if there is a tariff on copper."
Copper has long been nicknamed "Dr. Copper" for its supposed ability to diagnose the health of the global economy. That framing is losing relevance, White argues, as the metal is increasingly treated as a strategic, critical material rather than a pure economic bellwether, a shift reflected in its addition to the US critical materials list within the past 12 months. White linked that designation to strategic government actions including a direct equity stake taken in a copper miner and expanded permitting support for domestic projects. High prices have also improved margins for producers.
"With the copper price at an all-time high, they're definitely incentivized from AISC margin," White said. "They've never really been more profitable. It's really just a race to be able to produce this copper for these nations, especially as they want to diversify away from other regions like China."
Demand shows little sign of easing
White pointed to sustained investment in electricity grids, AI infrastructure and defence as key demand drivers, alongside the broader push toward electrification. He also cited Codelco, historically the world's largest copper miner, whose output has declined over more than two decades even as copper prices have risen roughly sevenfold since 2000, as an illustration of the supply challenge facing legacy producers.
"It is really hard for a lot of these legacy copper producers to move forward," White said. "We think the copper story from a supply perspective is going to be limited and really help those copper miners that bring it into production."
Taken together, the fundamentals cited by Sprott, Jefferies and Wood Mackenzie point to a copper market where tight supply, slow-to-develop new projects and expanding strategic demand could keep prices elevated well beyond the current record run.
A window for explorers and developers
That backdrop is proving especially favourable for copper explorers and developers. Higher long-term price assumptions in feasibility studies lift projected returns, turning previously marginal deposits into viable investment cases. Producers earning stronger margins are showing greater appetite for M&A, often preferring to acquire advanced projects rather than wait out the 17.5-year path from discovery to production. Capital markets have also loosened for the sector, making it easier for explorers to fund drilling and advance projects toward development.
Copper's addition to the US critical materials list adds a further tailwind, with projects in the US and allied jurisdictions potentially benefiting from expedited permitting and government support, an advantage over developments in the higher-risk jurisdictions Wood Mackenzie flagged as necessary for future supply growth. Explorers holding undeveloped resources may also see outsized re-ratings, as the market prices in the growing strategic value of copper still in the ground.
Here are some of juniors with strong exposure to copper prices:
- Gunnison Copper Corp (TSX:GCU, OTCQB:GCUMF, FRA:3XS0) develops copper mines in Southern Arizona to produce U.S.-made finished copper cathode for American energy, defense and manufacturing supply chains.
- C3 Metals Inc (TSX-V:CCCM, OTC:CUAUF) is a mineral exploration company advancing large copper and gold opportunities across approximately 30,000 hectares in Peru’s Andahuaylas-Yauri Porphyry-Skarn belt.
- Domestic Metals Corp (TSX-V:DMCU, OTCQB:DMCUF, FRA:03E0) explores for large-scale copper and gold deposits in the Americas, with its flagship Smart Creek Copper Porphyry Project in Montana operated through a joint venture with Rio Tinto.
- Midnight Sun Mining Corp (TSX-V:MMA, OTCQB:MDNGF) is focused on discovering world-class copper deposits in Zambia’s prolific Copperbelt, with its Solwezi licenses adjacent to First Quantum Minerals (TSX:FM)’ Kansanshi mine.
- Power Metallic Mines Inc (TSX-V:PNPN, FRA:IVV1, OTCQB:PNPNF) is advancing its Nisk project in Quebec as a potential polymetallic mine, targeting high-grade nickel, copper, PGM, gold and silver mineralization.
- Nine Mile Metals Ltd. (CSE:NINE, OTCQB:VMSXF, FRA:KQ9) is a Canadian critical minerals explorer focused on copper, lead, zinc, silver and gold deposits across four VMS projects in New Brunswick’s Bathurst Mining Camp.