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  • Copper Hits Record High as US Tariff Delay Divides Producers – Article

    Copper Hits Record High as US Tariff Delay Divides Producers – Article

    Copper Hits Record High as US Tariff Delay Divides Producers

    September 8, 2026
    Ryan Charles

    An overdue US tariff ruling is draining copper stocks outside America as mine output falls 1.1%, dividing producers by brand registration.

    • LME three-month copper touched an all-time $14,533 a tonne on 8 September 2026, a fourth straight session of gains, after passing January’s $14,527.50 peak the day before.
    • COMEX stocks hit a record 695,624 tonnes against about 80,000 tonnes in February 2025, while Shanghai Futures Exchange stocks fell to 63,000 tonnes.
    • World mine production fell 1.1% to 11.341 million tonnes in the first half of 2026, with mine capacity utilization at 77.1%, down from 80.5% in 2025.
    • Producers with COMEX-registered brands realize the record price, and the durable value sits with permitted tonnes within reach of an existing mill.
    • A tariff locks in the US premium, an exemption releases the stockpile, and LME stocks above 300,000 tonnes for 10 consecutive trading days would close the premium.

    US Tariff Delay Lifts LME Copper to a Record $14,533 a Tonne

    Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange touched $14,533 a tonne, surpassing the previous peak of $14,527.50 in January. Copper gained roughly 17% in 2026 and about 47% over 12 months.

    The price is set by where the metal sits, not by how much of it exists. Stocks in COMEX-approved warehouses reached a record 695,624 tonnes against about 80,000 tonnes in February 2025. Outside the US, Shanghai Futures Exchange stocks fell to 63,000 tonnes, 85% below the mid-March level, while 51% of LME warrants were canceled, marking more than 121,000 tonnes to leave the system.

    Mine Output Falls 1.1% While US Warehouses Hold Metal Off the Market

    World mine production fell 1.1% to 11.341 million tonnes in the first half of 2026, with capacity utilization at 77.1% against 80.5% for 2025 (ICSG Monthly Copper Bulletin). Plant stands idle for want of ore, with concentrate output down 2.6% as grade decline and weather hit Chilean mines. Chilean export value fell to $4.63 billion in August from $5.37 billion in July, leaving global mined output at risk of its first annual decline since 2017.

    World copper mine capacity utilization rate, 2022 to first half 2026. Source: International Copper Study Group; Crux Investor Analysis.

    The US Commerce Department owed the White House its refined copper tariff review by June 30, and no decision has appeared two months on. Every week without a ruling pays traders to move cathode into US warehouses, draining the LME and pushing the cash-to-three-month spread above $430 a tonne in mid-August, its widest since 2021 (Reuters).

    Overdue Tariff Ruling Keeps the Arbitrage Open and Non-US Stocks Thin

    Neither the metal nor the ruling moves quickly. Cathode landed in New Orleans cannot be re-exported without surrendering the premium that paid for the freight, and grade recovery at a large mine runs on a multi-quarter timetable rather than a news cycle. Albert Mackenzie, copper analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, told Reuters:

    “The longer there is uncertainty, the longer prices will remain elevated”

    Copper Tariff Premium Splits Producer Margins by Brand Registration

    The record print does not reach every producer equally. COMEX copper carried a premium of $400 to $600 a tonne over the LME price over the summer, so a producer with a COMEX-registered brand realizes a price a brand-restricted rival cannot reach. Congolese material, none of it COMEX-deliverable, clears at a $550 to $800 discount to cover freight, and US imports from the country hit a record 53,290 tonnes in July (Reuters).

    Brand status and pricing basis sit in offtake terms and realized-price disclosure, not on a price screen, and the tariff ruling is binary, overdue, unpriced. Copper equities have repriced alongside the metal, so a walk-back marks down both the commodity and the multiple applied to it, leaving position sizing as the variable a retail holder controls.

    What Lifts Copper Prices Without Lifting Producer Margins

    A tariff deadline pulled metal into one country and left everyone else short. The shortage is one of location rather than supply and can reverse within weeks once metal moves back.

    Gains went to holders of metal inside US warehouses and to producers whose brands clear on the US exchange. Mining equities rerated on the LME headline, which for many producers is not the price they bank, and that gap appears in realized-price disclosure at the next quarterly results rather than on a daily screen. 

    Capacity utilization at 77.1% says the plants are built, and the ore is not arriving, and that gap outlives the tariff. It rewards permitted tonnes within reach of an existing mill.

    LME stocks recovering above 300,000 tonnes and holding for 10 consecutive trading days in the daily LME stock report would close the location premium and hand pricing back to mine supply.

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  • Record strength El Niño could mean bigger supermarket bills for Australians, experts warn

    Record strength El Niño could mean bigger supermarket bills for Australians, experts warn

    RBA officials are concerned a severe El Niño could drive food prices higher and create a further headache later this year, when the central bank is contemplating whether it needs to hike interest rates again. Photograph: Sam Mooy/AAP
    RBA officials are concerned a severe El Niño could drive food prices higher and create a further headache later this year, when the central bank is contemplating whether it needs to hike interest rates again. Photograph: Sam Mooy/AAP

    Record strength El Niño could mean bigger supermarket bills for Australians, experts warn

    Predicted hot and dry weather in growing areas in eastern Australia identified as ‘one of the key issues’ that will affect food prices over next 12 months

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    The most severe El Niño weather event on record threatens to push food prices higher this year, experts say, piling pressure on households already struggling with the post-pandemic spike in grocery bills and complicating the Reserve Bank’s efforts to bring inflation back under control.

    The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast El Niño will peak in late spring or summer and “reach levels above the warmest observed since reliable records began in 1950”.

    Michael Harvey, a consumer food analyst at Rabobank research, said the predicted hot and dry weather in key growing areas in eastern Australia was “clearly one of the key issues that will have an impact on food pricing over the next 12 months”.

    The Food and Agricultural Organisation in its latest update reported rising weather-related threats are already being reflected in high and climbing global commodity prices.

    “It’s a very volatile time, and there are lots of risks around cost re-escalation in the food system,” Harvey said. “There is absolutely risk of food inflation coming through at the consumer end.”

    Not all commodities are heading in the same direction, however. For example, dairy and meat prices are beginning to ease after a big recent rise as the underlying fundamentals in those markets shift independently of the looming weather event.

    In Australia El Niño created a risk for what is still expected to be a strong winter wheat crop this year, Harvey said.

    “That will be the big thing to watch, as well as the spillover effects of that into things like feed grains,” he said, adding that the ultimate impact would be clear by the final quarter of the year.

    Even absent hotter and drier weather, overseas shocks have already pushed commodity price benchmarks higher this year, which are linked to local markets through the export trade.

    Dennis Voznesenski, CBA’s agricultural economist, said global wheat prices are up by about a third since the start of July, versus about 9% in Australia.

    The extreme weather warnings also come as the global oil benchmark, Brent crude, pushed past US$97 a barrel on Monday afternoon to be 35% higher since the start of July.

    With diesel prices on the rise again – a key cost for farmers – fertiliser suppliers have also warned of ongoing supply disruptions that will keep prices structurally higher.

    Meanwhile, Russia and Ukraine’s record grain harvests are struggling to find their way to international markets after tit-for-tat attacks on critical Black Sea ports.

    “A third of global grain exports are stuck right now,” Voznesenski said.

    The past five years have seen rapid increases in prices across a range of supermarket goods, contributing to an entrenched cost-of-living crisis across Australia.

    In the five years to June, for example, the cost of staples such as breads and cereals, dairy, and other products such as jams and eggs, jumped by between 28% and 30%.

    In comparison, in the preceding five-year period to mid-2021, the cumulative increase in these supermarket shelf items was 3-6%, according to analysis of quarterly Australian Bureau of Statistics data.

    RBA officials are concerned that a particularly severe El Niño could drive food prices higher and create a further headache later this year, at a time when the central bank is already contemplating whether it needs to raise interest rates again.

    But Jonathan Kearns, the chief economist at Challenger, said it was not easy to show a clear link between El Niño events and higher food prices, saying there were a range of costs – from labour to freight and packaging – that often played a bigger role in determining how much Australians pay at the checkout.

    “It won’t be a first-order influence on overall inflation, but if you get a little bit extra from food prices, then it’s unhelpful,” Kearns said.

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