Congo Shuts Export Tap, Copper Prices Soar into Dangerous Territory

Copper prices are once again sending hot signals to the global market.

The industrial metal briefly touched a new record in the United States market and approached its historic peak in London after the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) officially halted exports of copper and cobalt concentrate.

The decision immediately triggered concerns among market participants over smelting feedstock supply. Although the volume of affected concentrate is relatively limited, the news was enough to spur buying amid already thinning global stocks.

According to Reuters, the DRC government banned exports of copper concentrate and cobalt concentrate through a regulation that took effect immediately. The policy is part of the government’s strategy to ensure more mineral processing is carried out domestically so that added value is no longer enjoyed by other countries.

The market response was swift. Three-month copper contracts on the London Metal Exchange (LME) briefly surged to US$14,369.5 per tonne, the highest level since January when prices hit an all-time record of US$14,527.5 per tonne.

On the COMEX market in the United States, futures prices even briefly broke through US$6.72 per pound, the highest level ever recorded in trading.

Interestingly, this rally was not solely triggered by Congo’s export ban.

Over the past three months, the copper market has faced pressure from multiple directions.

Chile is still grappling with production disruptions, China is restricting exports of sulphuric acid needed for the refining process, while Congo has begun withholding concentrate exports. At the same time, investment in power grids, AI data centres and electrification continues to keep demand high. The combination has pushed copper prices back towards record highs.

Reuters reported that the premium for cash copper over three-month contracts on the LME widened to US$123 per tonne, the highest since October last year. Such conditions typically emerge when industrial players scramble for supply to meet short-term needs.

At the same time, copper inventories in official LME warehouses fell to 226,650 tonnes, the lowest level since mid-February. StoneX estimates that more than 1.2 million tonnes of copper have flowed into the United States since February 2025.

As a result, around 64% of visible global copper stocks are now held in the US, making supply in other regions increasingly tight.

Supply is also being disrupted on the production side.

Development of the Andes Norte area at Codelco’s El Teniente mine in Chile could still be delayed by up to two years due to underground technical issues. Chile is the world’s largest copper producer, so any operational disruption quickly affects market sentiment.

On the other hand, demand remains high. CNBC International reported that copper demand is increasingly coming from investment in power grids, data centre construction, electric vehicles and artificial intelligence infrastructure.

In other words, consumption of the red metal is now driven more by energy and digital transformation than by a general surge in economic activity.

China is one of the main engines of that demand. The country’s power grid investment in the first half of 2026 rose 13% compared with the same period last year. Beijing has also announced an investment plan of around US$574 billion to modernise its power grid over the coming years.

Meanwhile, the export ban from the DRC is actually not expected to cut global supply by a large amount.

Congolese government data cited by Reuters shows that the country exports far more copper in the form of refined cathodes. In the first quarter of 2026, cathode exports reached 696,725 tonnes. By contrast, concentrate exports totalled only 53,926 tonnes, containing around 18,863 tonnes of copper metal.

Christian-Geraud Neema, an analyst at the China-Global South Project, assessed that the biggest impact is likely to be felt by several companies that still hold exemptions to ship concentrate abroad.

One of them is the Kamoa-Kakula mining complex operated by Ivanhoe Mines together with Zijin Mining and the Congolese government. The company has previously obtained special permits on several occasions to continue exporting concentrate.

For that reason, it is market expectations that have moved first.

Broker Marex, in research cited by Reuters, noted that Congo indeed ships only a small portion of concentrate compared with its total copper production. But when global inventories are thinning and uncertainty over US import tariffs still hangs over the market, even the slightest news of supply disruption is capable of lifting prices.

For context, the Democratic Republic of Congo is the world’s second-largest copper producer after Chile.

Based on USGS data, the country’s copper production reached 3.3 million tonnes in 2024, well above Peru in third place with 2.6 million tonnes.

Indonesia, meanwhile, ranks sixth in the world with production of around 1.1 million tonnes, on par with the United States.

Congo’s position as one of the main suppliers of the red metal means that any change in the country’s export policy immediately attracts market attention and has the potential to influence global copper price movements.

This year’s copper price movements are ultimately becoming harder to read using the old approach.

For decades the red metal was known as “Dr. Copper”, an indicator of global economic health. Now the price direction is influenced more by the scramble for supply, electrification investment, AI data centre construction, and the downstreaming policies of producing countries.

For the metals market, the combination of these factors means the copper rally still has room to persist even though global economic growth has not fully recovered.