Since the beginning of the year, the price of copper has been on the rise, and multiple copper price indicators at home and abroad have hit historical highs, continuing the high-price operation. China consumes more than half of the global copper every year. As an important industrial raw material widely used in the fields of electricity, machinery, new energy, and others, what factors are supporting the high price of copper? What impact does it bring to China's related industrial chains?

Copper prices are running at high levels

Copper mining enterprises are operating at full capacity.

Ji Xing, a reporter from CCTV: At the Jiangxi De Xing copper mine, one of the world's largest open-pit copper mines, electric shovels are continuously loading the ore after blasting onto electric trucks, transporting more than 200 tons of ore every few minutes. With copper prices expected to remain high in 2025, this copper mine is also operating at full capacity 24 hours a day.

After processes such as ore dressing, these copper ores become copper concentrate with a copper content of more than 20%, which is then processed by midstream smelters into refined copper. Since the beginning of the year, the three-month copper futures price on the London Metal Exchange (LME) has risen by more than 20%, breaking through the $11,200 per ton mark at the end of October, setting a historical high; the domestic Shanghai Copper futures contract has also risen from 70,000 RMB per ton to nearly 90,000 RMB per ton this year. In November, copper prices remain at a high level. In this large copper mine, the production supervisor introduced that when copper prices are high, it can support the processing of more copper ores with lower copper content.

Wang Jia, deputy mine manager of Jiujiang Copper Group's Deqing Copper Mine: This year, we plan to use nearly 16 million tons of low-grade ore (copper ore) throughout the year, which is about 600,000 tons more than last year. The copper metal recovered is nearly 1,000 tons more than last year.

It is understood that China consumes about 15 million tons of refined copper every year, while the annual mine copper output is only about 1.8 million tons, with the dependence on foreign countries as high as 80 percent or more. This year, due to accidents in several large copper mines overseas, the global copper output growth failed to meet the expectations of the year, which pushed up this round of copper prices. Against this backdrop, several upstream copper mining companies in China have said that they are increasing the reserve of mines.

Data show that China's proven copper reserves have exceeded 40 million tons, an increase of more than 50% since 2020. In addition, the utilization of domestic recycled copper has increased significantly, accounting for 28% of total copper consumption in 2024, and is expected to become the main force in ensuring copper supply from copper raw materials.The increase in emerging industries has driven the increase in copper demand

In the interview, the industry insiders told reporters that in recent years, the rapid development of new industries such as new energy and data centers has led to a continuous increase in the demand for copper, which has also pushed up the price of copper.

In the interview, the person in charge of many copper processing enterprises told reporters that since this year, the demand for copper foil and copper rod related to new energy vehicles in copper downstream processing products such as copper wire, copper pipe and copper foil has been strong.

Jiangsu Copper Group Planning and Production Department Deputy General Manager Zhang Bo: In the field of new energy and new materials, the demand side is continuously expanding. Therefore, whether it is the price or the sales volume, it is increasing. For example, the sales volume of copper foil may have increased by 20,000 tons compared to last year.

Data shows that since the "14th Five-Year Plan", China's copper consumption has maintained a growth trend as a whole. In 2024, the national consumption of refined copper reached 14.95 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 2.75%; it is expected to reach 15.4 million tons in 2025, with an increase of about 3%. Among them, the copper consumption in the fields of new energy vehicles, photovoltaics, wind power and artificial intelligence is expected to reach 3.8 million tons to 4 million tons this year, driving the overall growth of copper consumption.

Zuo Haoen, marketing research manager of Wumao Non-Ferrous Metals Co., Ltd.: In China's emerging industries, almost every industry uses copper. The new (new energy vehicle) wind (wind power) and solar (solar power), data centers, its development can not be separated from copper. Therefore, based on the long-term supply and demand fundamentals of copper, everyone is relatively confident in the copper price.

Meanwhile, industry players also warn that if copper raw material prices continue to rise, copper could be replaced by lighter and cheaper aluminum in fields such as new energy vehicles, household appliances, and power distribution and transmission, which could weaken the growth expectations of downstream demand to some extent.

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