Copper narrowed its weekly loss on Friday as selling in AI-related stocks eased, cooling concerns about demand from data centres and power infrastructure. London copper rose as much as 1.3 percent intraday, narrowing the weekly loss to about 1.5 percent, Bloomberg reported, and copper is still up about 14 percent this year. In the site market tables, copper is 6.44 dollars a pound, up 1.24 percent on the day and down 1.37 percent on the week, after falling 1.73 percent in the previous session on rising LME stocks.
The supply side is moving the other way. Chilean Finance Minister Jorge Quiroz said the country’s copper output is expected to fall 8 percent to 9 percent this year, Bloomberg reported, potentially tightening supply. Chile is the world’s top copper producer, and its aging mines have been hit by fatal accidents and extreme weather in recent months, including two deaths in an avalanche at Codelco’s El Teniente operation.
BHP gave the company-level version of the same story on Tuesday. Copper production fell 19 percent from a year earlier in the three months through September, to 400.7 thousand metric tons, missing the Visible Alpha consensus estimate of 423.6 thousand tons, Reuters reported. The drop reflected planned grade declines and scheduled maintenance, alongside temporary disruptions from severe weather in Chile, the company said, and operations at its flagship Escondida mine were suspended in late September after a worker was killed in a maintenance accident. BHP kept its full-year guidance unchanged across all operations.
Expectations that the Trump administration may impose tariffs on refined metals have also driven substantial copper flows into the United States, supporting prices, Bloomberg reported, though traders remain uncertain whether the policy will be implemented. That flow is why exchange stocks can rise globally while regional premiums stay at records, the pattern reported in yesterday’s edition.