Copper exchange inventories have climbed above 1 million tons for the first time in 21 years. Meanwhile, smelter activity has slowed, China’s demand softened, yet the price remains elevated despite pulling back from January highs.

The answer lies in a lack of confidence in long-term supply. The market has entered an era of electricity intensity. Therefore, copper is no longer merely a cyclical industrial input but a foundational infrastructure for the 21st-century economy.

Months Vs. Decades

At a recent BMO global mining conference, Teck Resources Ltd.’s (NYSE:TECK) CEO Jonathan Price framed copper as “at the heart of electrification.” He pointed to three structural drivers reshaping demand: electrification, digital infrastructure, and rapid urbanization.

Electric vehicles require roughly 4 times as much copper as internal combustion cars. Solar farms, wind turbines, and the grid expansions that connect them are copper-heavy. Meanwhile, hyperscale data centers, the physical backbone of AI and cloud computing, are being rolled out at unprecedented speed.

“There is an emerging disconnect between the lead time to bring on new mine supply versus the underlying demand drivers,” Price warned, according to Mining Weekly. ...