Copper
Tech companies want to own copper, not just buy it. Anglo says the talks are real and nobody has signed.
Anglo American's chief executive told an FT summit on 15 October that technology groups have shown "deep expressions of interest" in equity stakes to lock in metal for data centres. Washington is already lending into the same gap through Project Vault. In Brazil, Vale says a listing of its copper unit is not imminent, and Anglo's ferronickel has one credible buyer, from China.
The copper study group now names AI as a demand driver. Its 2027 surplus still more than triples.
The International Copper Study Group sees refined copper in surplus by 104,000 tonnes this year and 368,000 tonnes in 2027, as smelters in Indonesia, India and Europe ramp up faster than consumption. The shortage the AI trade talks about is in the mine, not in the metal on the shelf.
Chile mined its smallest copper month in Cochilco's series in August. Codelco now has a second audit on the numbers it is compared against.
Chilean mine output fell 12.7 percent to 366,300 tonnes in August, while Codelco's output rose 8.9 percent. On 6 October Codelco said the same material may have been booked twice by its Ministro Hales and Salvador divisions in 2024 and 2025. Two strikes are now live or pending at Centinela and Escondida.
Escondida loses up to a fifth of its copper before anyone walks out
BHP has guided the world's largest copper mine to 1.0 to 1.1 million tonnes in FY27 on a 0.70 percent grade, down from 1.26 million. A 95 percent strike vote on 1 October sits on top of that. Vale's Salobo upgrade in Brazil fills between a tenth and a fifth of the gap, starting in 2028.
China's Copper Veto Has Nothing to Do With Competition. It Is a Purchase Order.
Reuters reports Beijing's antitrust regulator has asked Anglo American to guarantee concentrate flows as a condition of clearing the $54 billion Teck merger. The combined company would hold about 5 percent of global supply. Read as competition policy the demand is incoherent. Read as procurement it is the clearest statement yet of what China's smelter overbuild actually costs it.
Reopen to Close: Panama Turns a Copper Restart Into a Shutdown Plan
A three-minister commission told President Mulino on 30 September to negotiate a Cobre Panama restart that pays for the mine's own permanent closure, with a fixed end date and no expansion. First Quantum fell as much as 36 percent.
Latin America put a price on above-ground risk. $54 billion, and the AI buildout pays it in mines that never start
A risk consultancy told a September 24 webinar that permitting, community conflict and security have cost or frozen more than $54 billion across the region since 2018. Strip out one 2015 tailings settlement and the documented losses fall to $6.3 billion. The number that matters is not the total. It is where capital is going instead.
China still owns the mine. Congo changed where the copper goes.
Kinshasa's own half-year statistics put copper exports at a record 1,724,217 tonnes and say the share sold into the United States and Europe doubled. The instrument was not a takeover. It was a marketing right attached to state equity, and Brazil does not have one.
Chile Digs a Quarter of the World's Copper. It Melts 4.2 Percent of It.
A new Cochilco study puts Chile's share of global smelted copper at 4.2 percent against 23 percent of mined concentrate, with the furnaces it already owns running at about 60 percent. The AI buildout's hardest physical input gets turned into metal somewhere else.
Peru's copper answer is 240 permits. Las Bambas says the constraint is not paperwork
Prime Minister Luis Galarreta told Congress on August 20 that Peru will authorize 240 mining projects this year and expects $33 billion over five years. Two days earlier a fatal accident stopped Las Bambas, the wholly Chinese-owned mine that produced 410,829 tonnes in 2025.
Copper's Real Bottleneck Moved From the Mine to the Warehouse
LME copper stocks have fallen 42 days straight to 204,975 tonnes and traders paid a $434 premium for metal they can take today. The AI buildout's copper constraint is no longer geological. It is a delivery problem.
Vale Just Added 30,000 Tonnes of Copper Without Opening a New Mine
Coarse particle flotation at Salobo will lift copper output by up to 30,000 tonnes a year for about $175 million net, starting in the first half of 2028. With copper at record highs, the fastest new supply is metallurgical, not geological.
Rio Tinto's copper cost cut lands as Codelco chair picks profit over volume
Rio Tinto cut its 2026 copper C1 guidance by roughly half on July 15, days after Chile's Codelco signaled it will chase margin, not tonnage. The marginal ton of AI copper is repricing outside the Andes.
Anglo and Codelco close the Los Bronces, Andina merger. The AI grid needed this copper.
After a September 2025 preliminary deal cleared antitrust and regulatory review, the two mines now run on one plan. 2.7 million tonnes of additional copper over 21 years, sized for a market the data centers are tightening.
Wall Street caught up to copper. Panama opened a door. Iran said the strait is closed.
Goldman raised forecasts on June 1. Jefferies followed on June 8. HSBC warned of a super-squeeze on June 2. Panama's SGS audit on June 19 puts Cobre Panama's 350,000 tonnes back on the table. Then on June 20 Tehran's military said Hormuz is closed.
Copper near $14,000 as Chile fades and Vale Base Metals lines up for its IPO
LME copper traded just under $14,000 this week, off the May 13 peak of $14,097, while Chile's April output fell 13.8 percent. Vale logged a Q1 copper record and is pushing its Base Metals IPO toward mid-2026.
Codelco's audit cracks the AI copper math. Chile just got worse in writing.
A May 21 firing. 27,000 tonnes misclassified between Chuquicamata and Ministro Hales. Chile's April total down 13.8 percent. The hyperscalers' load-bearing input has a credibility problem at the largest single source.
The Copper Bill Hyperscalers Cannot Outrun
Copper near $6.40, FAST-41 just extended to AI data centers and an Alaskan copper deposit, and China's smelters are working at a zero treatment benchmark. The AI buildout's most boring input is now its most binding.
Chile pulled Collahuasi's desalination permit. Copper is at $14,000.
A May 15 tribunal ruling set aside the environmental clearance for the water plant Anglo and Glencore are counting on. Production was already running below plan, and AI demand only points one direction.