CITIC Securities: Copper Prices Expected to Challenge $15,000 Within the Year
Claire Weston
CITIC Securities says the US Commerce Department's June 30 deadline for a copper-market review has put tariff trading and stockpiling back at the centre of the copper market, with prices potentially reaching $15,000/t this year — while copper equities have already fallen to historically extreme valuations.
How much did copper move, and what's the signal?
On June 1, LME copper rose 2.0% to $13,897/t; COMEX copper rose 2.8% to $14,485/t.
COMEX copper inventory hit a record 642,000 short tons; the COMEX-LME spread widened to nearly $600/t.
This means → copper is being shipped to US warehouses from around the world, and the spread is the "bounty" that pays for the trip.
Who is stockpiling, and why do the motives differ?
CITIC splits copper hoarding into two types: trade-driven and precautionary.
Trade-driven stockpiling = traders see COMEX priced ~$600 above LME and ship copper to US warehouses for the arbitrage. In plain terms = copper flows wherever the price is highest — the profit comes from the "tariff expectation gap."
Precautionary stockpiling = US downstream buyers fear copper will cost more after tariffs, so they import early. The data: from March 2025 to March 2026, US average monthly refined-copper imports surged from 66,000 t to 158,000 t.
This reflects a deeper pattern — even after the spread narrowed, precautionary demand held: January–March 2026 monthly imports stayed above 170,000 t, showing that "fear of higher prices" outlasts arbitrage.
What supports the fundamental case?
AI data centres consume roughly 30,000 t of copper per GW (GW — one billion watts, a typical large data-centre power class). This means → the faster AI scales, the more certain copper's long-run demand uplift becomes.
Manufacturing reshoring plus tighter state control over critical-metal supply chains are driving unprecedented inventory-building overseas.
During the US-Iran tensions in March 2026, copper found solid support near $12,000/t. In plain terms = the market is pricing copper's "strategic metal" status, and the floor keeps rising.
Where do copper-equity valuations stand?
Year-to-date, the CITIC Copper Index has fallen 3.1% — underperforming copper by 13.7 percentage points and the CSI 300 by 1.8 pp.
At an assumed copper price of $13,000/t, the sector's 2026 forward P/E (price-to-earnings ratio — how many years of profit it takes to "pay back" the share price) is just 9.8×, breaching the 10× historical floor.
This means → copper prices are rising while copper stocks are falling — valuations have compressed to a historically rare level, and any easing of macro headwinds could unlock both earnings upside and multiple expansion simultaneously.
What gets copper to $15,000, and what could go wrong?
CITIC's upside path: macro headwinds ease + extreme weather disrupts supply + power-grid equipment and AI demand surge — copper could hit $15,000/t.
Key risks: a sharp copper-price drop, US copper tariffs falling short in timing or magnitude, weaker-than-expected downstream demand, surging costs for sulphuric acid and diesel, a Middle East escalation triggering a liquidity shock, and operational risks at Chinese-owned overseas copper mines.
Put simply = the logic is clear but the variables are many — tariff timing, demand delivery, geopolitical risk. Any one drifting off course changes the tempo.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.