Copper climbed for a sixth straight session on Tuesday, its longest winning streak in four months, as Chinese buyers stocked up ahead of next week’s holidays and shrinking inventories in Shanghai and London pointed to a physical market that is running short of metal.
Comex copper for December delivery, the most active contract, rose as much as 1.6% to $6.8710 a pound in New York and was trading at $6.8370 (about $15,070 a tonne) by late morning, up 1.1% on the day and within a stone’s throw of the record settlement of $6.8885 set on September 9, the day before a Reuters report that the White House tariff plan had stalled knocked more than 5% off the price.
Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange rose 0.7% to $14,766 a tonne by mid-afternoon in London, within 1% of the $14,875 peak of September 10, keeping the premium for New York copper at more than $300 a tonne. The most-traded contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange gained 1.2% to 111,320 yuan ($16,616) a tonne.
Copper stocks in SHFE warehouses have slid 70% since early June, and cathode inventories in Shanghai, the main trading and consumption hub, fell to 43,900 tonnes last week, the lowest since 2023, according to Shanghai Metals Market. Imported metal that has arrived in the country has gone straight to fabricators rather than into warehouses, SMM said, and the Yangshan premium paid for delivered copper finished last week at its highest in nearly four years.
“Copper is finding support from tightening physical market conditions in China,” Ewa Manthey, commodities strategist at ING, told Reuters, with falling inventories, seasonal restocking and constrained spot availability offsetting the uncertainty over US tariffs.
“Chinese are buying ahead of holidays and smelter shutdowns,” said Sandeep Daga, head of research at Metal Intelligence Centre. The country’s markets close from September 25 to 27 and again from October 1 to 7.
London runs short
Cash copper settled at a $62 a tonne premium to the three-month contract on Monday, up from $26 a session earlier and a discount of $86 a week ago, a backwardation that signals buyers cannot wait for delivery. Cancelled warrants, metal already booked for withdrawal from LME warehouses, climbed by a further 6,700 tonnes to 122,150 tonnes on Tuesday, or 48% of the 255,100 tonnes on warrant, leaving 133,725 tonnes actually available to the market.
In contrast, Comex warehouses hold 696,204 tonnes, some 69% of all exchange-monitored copper, after importers rushed metal in ahead of tariffs that Washington has yet to impose. That pile is no longer growing: stocks slipped last week for the first time since April, according to The Copper Journal, and with storage at the Port of New Orleans, the main Comex delivery hub, largely full and another 100,000 tonnes of African and South American copper due over September and October, the US is fast running out of room to absorb more.
Not everyone is convinced the rally has further to run. “I think it’s a little bit inflated up here. If it gets any higher, I think a lot of the producers in China are going to start selling because they’re not convinced it’s going to stay this high,” Robert Montefusco at broker Sucden Financial told Reuters. Bloomberg Intelligence’s Mike McGlone warned last week that a broader market correction could take 20% to 30% off the copper price.
Traders are also waiting on the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this week for signals on trade and the health of the world’s two largest economies. The Federal Reserve’s quarter-point hike last week, its first since 2023, and the prospect of more to come remain the main drag on industrial metals.
Miners claw back some September losses
Copper producers rose with the metal on Tuesday, extending a week of gains that has repaired some of the damage from the sell-off that followed the September 10 peak.
Freeport-McMoRan, the largest listed copper producer, climbed 1.8% to $73.48 in New York by late morning, lifting its market value to $105.5 billion and trimming its loss for September to 3%. The Phoenix-based company’s Grasberg troubles in Indonesia, together with Ivanhoe Mines’ output cut at Kamoa-Kakula in Congo, have removed some 600,000 tonnes from this year’s expected global supply and could see mined copper output fall in 2026 for the first time since 2017, Sprott Asset Management said last week.
Southern Copper added 1.8% to a market value of $170.2 billion, extending the Mexican company’s lead over Rio Tinto, worth $164.3 billion after a 0.5% dip, for second place in the MINING.COM ranking of the world’s most valuable miners. Southern Copper has gained 6.5% over the past week but remains 3.5% lower for the month.
First Quantum Minerals rose 3.1% in Toronto to a value of $27.5 billion, taking its advance over the past week to more than 11%, the best of the large copper producers, after securing a UK patent for its trolley-assist haulage system. Lundin Mining gained 2.6% to $21.6 billion and is up 10.5% over the week, and Ivanhoe Mines, which fell out of the Top 50 after the Kamoa-Kakula downgrade, climbed 2.7% to a valuation of $12.9 billion.
Teck Resources rose 1.2% in New York, valuing the Vancouver-based company at $33.2 billion as it waits on Chinese approval for its $53 billion merger with Anglo American, which added 1.3% in US trading. Glencore, a 44% partner at Collahuasi, stands between the combined group and $1.4 billion a year of copper synergies from integrating the mine with Teck’s Quebrada Blanca.
Antofagasta gained 2.8% in over-the-counter trading in New York to a value of $51.1 billion, up 8% over the past week even after cutting its 2026 guidance following Chile’s winter storms, and Poland’s KGHM added 2%.
The diversified majors lagged. Glencore’s US-listed shares slipped 0.7%, leaving the Swiss company worth $84.5 billion and down 10% for the month as the fallout from its dealings with iron ore trader Radiant World continues, while BHP, valued at $220.9 billion, edged up 0.4% and is still 8% lower in September after output at its Escondida mine in Chile slumped 22% in July.
Comex copper is up 21% in 2026 and less than 1% below its record settlement.
(With files from Reuters and Bloomberg)
Source: https://www.mining.com/copper-price-closes-in-on-new-record-as-shanghai-london-warehouses-empty-out/
