‘Dr. Copper’ Is High and May Yet Go Higher
Soaring demand for the red metal means it’s no longer an effective gauge of booms or busts.
Boom times in copper mines, with billions to be made above ground.
Photographer: GLENN ARCOS/AFPThe world is obsessed with oil and natural gas. In the metals world, lithium and cobalt, used for batteries, garner most of the talk. Copper is receiving far less attention. The metal was the first that humankind used, probably as early as 8,000 BC, to make primitive tools. Millennia later, it remains one of the best conductors of electricity, second only to silver, which is much more expensive. That makes the red metal a critical cog in the energy transition.
And that’s why Robert Friedland, a legendary industry maverick and co-chairman of Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines Ltd., says after years of underinvestment now is “the revenge of the miners.”