ICSG predicts copper surplus for 2025

After conducting its annual meeting in late April in its home city of Lisbon, Portugal, the International Copper Study Group (ICSG) expects nations around the world to produce more copper in 2025 than will be consumed by end markets.

It is the second time within a week that a nonferrous metals group has predicted supply outweighing demand this year. Earlier this month, the International Nickel Study Group, also based in Lisbon, predicted global nickel output would outweigh consumption in 2025 by about 198,000 metric tons.

On the copper mining front, ICSG predicts mined copper output will increase by 2.3 percent year on year in 2025 and grow another 2.5 percent in 2026.

Primary refiners are forecast to produce 2.9 percent more copper this year compared with last year while recycled-content secondary refiners will boost output by 3.3 percent, ICSG predicts.

“In 2026, world refined production is expected to decline by 1.5 percent, [though] secondary refined production [from scrap] is expected to grow by 6.4 percent as a consequence of new and expanded capacity in a number of countries,” ICSG continues.

Meanwhile, the trade group calculates that world apparent refined copper use will increase by about 2.4 percent in 2025 and 1.8 percent in 2026.

“In view of uncertainty surrounding international trade policy that is likely to weaken the global economic outlook and negatively impact copper demand, usage growth rates have been revised down compared to the group’s September 2024 forecasts,” ICSG says.

In China, the world’s largest copper producer and consumer, ICSG predicts use will rise by about 2 percent this year and just 0.8 percent in 2026.

“In general, however, global usage is expected to continue to be supported by improvements in manufacturing activity in some of the key copper end-use sectors, continued demand from energy transition, urbanization, digitalization (data centers) and the development of new semis production capacity in India and a number of other countries," the group says.

Measuring its predicted trends against each other, ICSG expects a refined copper surplus of about 289,000 metric tons for 2025 and another 209,000 tons for 2026.

“In developing its global market balance, ICSG uses an apparent demand calculation for China that does not consider changes in unreported stocks (State Reserve Bureau, producer, consumer, merchant/trader, bonded) [that] can be significant during periods of stocking or de-stocking and which can markedly alter global supply-demand balances," the group says.

In a monthly report issued April 21 by ICSG, the group notes that China’s bonded stocks are thought to have increased about 17,000 metric tons in the first two months of 2025 compared with the year-end 2024 level.

 As of March 31, ICSG says copper inventories held at the major metal exchanges (London Metal Exchange, or LME; Comex; and Shanghai Futures Exchange, or SHFE) totaled more than 537,000 tons, an increase of some 106,000 metric tons—or 25 percent—compared with inventory held Dec. 31, 2024.

The vast majority of the increased inventory is in SHFE warehouses, according to ICSG. The trade group says LME warehouse copper inventory fell by more than 58,000 metric tons in the first quarter of this year, while Comex warehouse stocks rose by just 3,750 metric tons. The SHFE copper inventory, meanwhile, rose by more than 160,000 metric tons in the first quarter of 2025.