Copper Market Turns Bearish as Demand Falters
Funds have begun adopting increasingly bearish stances on copper as the market reels from the sudden loss of 600,000 tons of expected copper supply. Most experts and the copper market itself expected to produce a surplus of copper in 2024, but the unexpected loss of more than one-half a million tons of copper supply threw the market into a sudden deficit. In late 2023, the Panama government instructed a Canadian mining and metals company to shut down its lucrative Cobre Panama copper mine after the country’s Supreme Court invalidated its operating license. The mine was responsible for 1% of the…