COPPER MARKET IS STARTING TO LOOK TIGHT AGAIN AND THE TIMING FOR BC COPPER STORIES COULDN’T BE MORE INTERESTING
Copper just pushed to $13,619/t on the LME, a fresh 3-month high and only ~6% below the January all-time peak near $14,500. This move didn’t come out of nowhere either. The market is reacting to real supply pressure.
Grasberg, one of the largest copper-gold mines on Earth, now expects full recovery only in early 2028 instead of H2 2027. That’s potentially another 6–12 months of reduced supply from a mine that normally produces hundreds of thousands of tonnes of copper annually. At the same time, Shanghai copper inventories just fell another 5.6% in a single week. Metal keeps leaving warehouses even at elevated prices.
And while this is happening, money is flowing into copper futures. COMEX open interest jumped by 4,230 contracts in one day. Copper price up + open interest up usually means new money entering the trade, not traders exiting old positions.
The market is already reacting across the sector. $TECK, $FCX, $NGD, $SCCO and other copper names have all been catching stronger attention as traders start looking further out at future supply.
Now look at $NRED.CSE / $NREDF.
Wilmac expanded to 16,077.76 hectares after the Trojan-Condor addition. Four target areas are now tied into one growing district-scale model: Wilmac, Lamont, Plume and Trojan-Condor.
Recent work already identified:
copper soil anomalies
intrusive rocks
magnetic anomalies
fertile magma signatures
porphyry-style alteration with chalcopyrite and epidote
The newest North Lamont results added another layer: multiple copper anomalies directly aligned with the magnetic system. The company now believes parts of the intrusive complex may be buried deeper under cover rocks, which is exactly why the 2026 IP/AMT program matters.
And that program is large:
85+ km of deep geophysics designed to image beyond 1,500 meters.
That’s the stage where these stories begin transitioning from maps and theory into actual drill targets.
Copper near highs.
Inventories falling.
Major mines delayed.
New supply becoming harder to find.
The market is slowly starting to care about where the next generation of copper projects comes from.
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