Fitch: Copper price to regain March peaks in 2027

By Frik Els

2022.09.20

Copper prices have  been hovering either side of $3.50 a pound ($7,700 tonne) for the better part of two months, down 21% since the start of the year and nowhere near record highs touched in early March.

Slowing global growth and a strong dollar, which makes copper more expensive in the rest of the world, have undercut the bull case based on historically low inventories and robust longer term demand fundamentals.

A new report by Fitch Solutions cuts the research firm’s 2023 price forecasts for next year by double digits to $8,400 down from a previous projection of an average of $9,580 for the year.

Fitch expects a small surplus on the copper market for this year, but from 2023 expects growing deficits peaking at some 9 million tonnes by the end of the decade as demand accelerates “mainly driven by consumption related to the green transition.”