Copper price keeps soaring amid commodities rally

Copper price surged again on Tuesday after the metal shot above $9,000 a tonne for the first time in nine years.

March contracts rose 1.5% to $4.1790 per pound ($9,193.8 per tonne) in New York, its highest level since an August 2011 high of $4.50.

Click here for an interactive chart of copper prices.

Copper is surging amid a broad rally in metals from iron ore to nickel. The bellwether industrial metal has doubled in price since a nadir in March, also boosted by rapidly tightening physical markets and prospects for rebounding economic growth.

“The mega-trends that we see playing out around global population growth, the electrification thematic and the energy transition, all of these bodes well for commodity demand over the medium-to-long term,” Mike Henry, BHP CEO, said last week in a Bloomberg Television interview.

“Folks who have really ignored commodities for quite a long time are now starting to get positioned,” said Bart Melek, head of commodity strategy at TD Securities.

“The implication is that this could go on for a bit. It’s very much a function of expectations of scarcity.”

Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, views the recent spike in the price of the red metal as a “good opportunity” to generate cash for investments and hold down debt, but warned it could also drive up the miner’s costs, a senior executive told Reuters on Monday.

(With files from Bloomberg)