Why Copper Demand Keeps Doubling

Most estimates will uh put a the market into a supply deficit beginning sometime in late 2025 out through 2027.

That tends to be the window that most are pointing to.

A lot can change.

The copper market tends to have a lot of supply disruptions.

Uh on average, it's about 5% a year uh that we see from supply disruptions. and Cadelco, which is the Chilean state um producer of copper, actually has their largest mine, which um suffered a partial collapse uh about a week and a half ago.

So, they're still working to bring that online.

That's just one example uh that we see as disruptions happen.

Uh but typically, when you look at the broader uh copper market, about every 25 years or so, as economies are advancing, we see there's about a doubling for copper demand.

Um and we're starting to see that now uh as you have developing countries are increasing their standard of living.

Uh developed countries are having technological advancements which includes things like AI and electrification.

Um so that's really providing uh this backdrop of increased demand but we are seeing some headwinds uh as it relates to supplying more copper.

Uh first one of those would be declining or grades as much of the easy to access copper has already been mined out.

So that means miners have to extend the life of existing mines and move more dirt in order to bring more ore out of the ground.

Um we're also seeing that uh the long lead times to bring a new mine uh on and operational from once it's discovered.

On average in the the United States it can take about 29 years from discovery to production.

We see large producing countries like Canada where it can take about 27 years.

Uh Chile which is the largest producer in the world they actually take about 22 years.

So significant lead times.

We think that relaxing the permitting process could go a long way to help bring new supply on online.

Uh but we do expect to see as we move through the coming years a structural supply deficit uh out into the foreseeable future uh once we get past these next uh couple of