Energy reform bill passes in US House of Representatives
Lower Energy Costs Act intended to bolster US oil and gas production while scaling back climate initiatives.
Copper price surged again on Tuesday after the metal shot above $9,000 a tonne for the first time in nine years.
March contracts rose 1.5% to $4.1790 per pound ($9,193.8 per tonne) in New York, its highest level since an August 2011 high of $4.50.
Click here for an interactive chart of copper prices.
Copper is surging amid a broad rally in metals from iron ore to nickel. The bellwether industrial metal has doubled in price since a nadir in March, also boosted by rapidly tightening physical markets and prospects for rebounding economic growth.
“The mega-trends that we see playing out around global population growth, the electrification thematic and the energy transition, all of these bodes well for commodity demand over the medium-to-long term,” Mike Henry, BHP CEO, said last week in a Bloomberg Television interview.
“Folks who have really ignored commodities for quite a long time are now starting to get positioned,” said Bart Melek, head of commodity strategy at TD Securities.
“The implication is that this could go on for a bit. It’s very much a function of expectations of scarcity.”
Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, views the recent spike in the price of the red metal as a “good opportunity” to generate cash for investments and hold down debt, but warned it could also drive up the miner’s costs, a senior executive told Reuters on Monday.
(With files from Bloomberg)
