Friedland Heralds the Dawn of the Copper Age
Bullish outlook for copper as red metal hits new highs in 2026
Like many other commodities, the copper price has started 2026 with a bang.
Copper had its best year in 2025 in more than a decade, surging by 45.6% and last week, it surpassed US$6 per pound for the first time in history
On Tuesday, BHP (ASX: BHP) said the strong copper price was being driven by “healthy demand and by supply disruptions at a number of competitors”.
Speaking at the Future Minerals Forum in Saudi Arabia last week, Ivanhoe Mines (TSX: IVN) founder and chairman Robert Friedland said it was the dawn of the copper age.
He pointed out that while the oil price was flat over the past five years, the copper price had risen from US$8000 per tonne to a high last week of US$13,400/t.
Friedland was particularly bullish about the demand being created by the data centres required to power artificial intelligence.
“This year, in 2026, the electricity demand for data centres in the world will equal the electrical consumption of Japan, the third largest economy in the world,” he said.
“Each of those Tesla servers needs gold, iron, gallium, antimony, tungsten, silver, several rare earth elements, indium, tantalum, palladium, barium, niobium, and titanium … not just copper.”
Friedland used Microsoft’s “baby” data centre in Chicago as an example.
“It used 2 million kilograms of copper for a small data centre, but it also needed barium, antimony, titanium, indium, silver, tungsten, gold, gallium, tantalum, many rare earth elements, niobium, and palladium,” he said.
“It’s very important when you do a Google search or you do an AI search, how many metals are required to make that search actually happen.”
Morgan Stanley estimates data centres consumed around 500,000 tonnes of copper last year, which it expects to rise to 1 million tonnes next year and 1.3Mt by 2028.
“This represents circa 1.5% of demand currently; however, this could reach circa 3.3% by 2028, behind EV demand at 5.6%,” analysts said last week.
“We remain positive on copper, seeing a market deficit of circa 600,000t for 2026 and continued tightness until there is clarity on potential US tariffs for 2027, with potential for 2025 supply disruptions spilling over into 2026.”
What about price?
According to Friedland, 700 million tonnes of copper had been mined in history.
“To maintain our current lifestyle, to keep the world going exactly as it has been going, we need to mine another 700 million metric tonnes in the next 18 years,” he said.
“That’s without an energy transition and that’s without the dreams of AI. That’s just as we’re living now.
“So, speaking to you as a miner, it’s very apparent we need six new tier one copper mines to come online every year into the year 2050 to meet global copper demand, and 40% of the production from those new mines will be required for electrification and data centres and grid upgrades.”
Friedland said the energy needed to produce a unit of copper was up 16-fold since 1900, whole the amount of water required had doubled.
“So, it’s very clear that the copper price must double to meet future mining needs, and if we could turn forward the clock another five years, just as copper has gone from US$3.60 a pound five years ago to well over US$6 today, the price will be much higher.”
Citi is bullish on base metals in general and sees copper rising to US$14,000/t in the current quarter and averaging US$13,000/t this year.
In its bull case scenario, which has a 30% probability, copper would rise to US$15,000/t.
“To sustain pricing above US$13,000/t through 2026 requires fresh catalysts,” Citi said.
“Market momentum, further positioning upside, and intact bullish narratives (US arb/tariff dynamics, demand and growth expectations, mine supply constraint, debasement tail-risks) can all drive prices higher in the very near-term.
“However, our bullish price conviction from here is much lower than in December.
“January could mark the 2026 price high and unless fresh catalysts emerge to realise our US$15,000/t bull-case scenario, we expect an eventual retreat to a more sustainable US$13,000/t level (which base case sees a balanced 2026 market), with a base case average price forecast of US$13,000/t for 2Q-4Q 2026.”