Goldman Sachs warns that it will be difficult for copper prices to stay above the $11,000 mark, with supply shortages expected until 2029.

Goldman Sachs injected a touch of caution into the current optimistic discussions surrounding the outlook for copper. The bank stated that a surge in copper prices to over $11,000 per ton would be short-lived, as there is still ample global supply to meet demand. Analysts, including Aurelia Walther, wrote in a report, "Most of the recent increase in copper prices is based on expectations of future market tightness, rather than current fundamentals. We do not expect the trend to remain above $11,000 per ton in the short term." Concerns about copper being urgently shipped to the U.S. before the imposition of tariffs causing a global supply shortage led copper prices to soar to a record high of $11,540 per ton on the London Metal Exchange (LME) on Wednesday. The warning from trading company Marenergy Group last week about an "extreme" mismatch in supply further exacerbated this trading sentiment in the market. Although Goldman Sachs raised its copper price forecast for the first half of next year and stated that the tariff transactions in the U.S. would support prices, the bank pointed out that "extremely low" non-U.S. inventories could be avoided by increasing regional premiums and narrowing the LME term spread. Goldman Sachs predicts a shortage of about 500,000 tons in demand compared to supply this year, and a copper shortage will not occur until 2029. Analysts wrote, "Although we predict a much smaller surplus of 160,000 tons in 2026, which will bring the market closer to balance, it means that we do not expect a copper shortage to occur globally anytime soon." They stated that copper prices in 2026 will be "constrained" in the range of $10,000 to $11,000 per ton. On Thursday, LME copper prices rose slightly. As of the time of writing, LME copper prices fell by 0.01% to $11,479 per ton, with an increase of 31% since the beginning of the year. Mining stocks in the Asia-Pacific region followed the rise in copper prices, with Australian-listed Capstone Copper rising as much as 8.2%. Li Xuezhi, director of the Institute of Chaotic Heaven, said, "This upward trend has just begun, and we remain bullish on copper prices." He pointed out that the large amount of metals withdrawn from LME warehouses on Wednesday "increased immediate concerns in the market about supply shortages." However, copper prices have been the subject of various bold predictions for a long time, and these predictions often do not align with reality. Despite the pressure on supply from a series of shutdown events at major mines by 2026, and despite clear bright spots such as green technology, global demand for copper has recently slowed down. As a key market for copper, demand in the Chinese market has dropped significantly in recent months. Goldman Sachs predicts that copper consumption in China will decrease by nearly 8% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of this year. The bank forecasts a growth of 2.8% next year.