Copper has spent 2026 setting records, touching an intraday COMEX high of $6.71 per pound on May 13 amid AI-driven demand and supply shocks, against a backdrop where the ICSG now forecasts a 150,000-tonne deficit for 2026. In a market this tight, where the deficit thesis turns on lost tonnes, the question of where the world's copper actually comes from carries unusual weight.

Copper has spent most of 2026 doing something it had not done in a quarter century: setting fresh records every few weeks. The COMEX contract printed an intraday all-time high of $6.71 per pound on May 13, and the May monthly close looks set to land at the top of the historical chart. In London, copper traded above $14,000 per tonne in mid-May, touching $14,196.50, within reach of the LME's January 29 record of $14,527.50.

Copper futures touched an all-time high above $6.58 per pound on May 12, 2026, capping a 40.86% gain over the prior twelve months as supply tightness collided with structural demand from grid build-out, electric vehicles, and AI data centers. Earlier in the year, the LME benchmark rallied 22% to a record $13,387 per tonne on January 6, 2026. Behind the price action lies a less-discussed story: what it actually costs the world's largest miners to pull a pound of copper out of the ground.

As power-hungry AI data centers drive a projected 2-million-ton surge in global copper demand by 2030, market attention remains fixated on the supply side. Fourth-quarter 2025 metrics provide a definitive look at how the world's top miners closed out the year. While overall volumes remain heavily concentrated among a few historic industry giants, the true Q4 narratives emerged further down the list, as mid-tier producers leveraged flagship asset expansions to hit multi-year highs and offset the sector's ongoing struggle with declining ore grades.