The copper bull case got a fresh proponent today as Scotiabank’s Orest Wowkodaw is back with a market update barely a month after his last one, and the message is that things are tightening faster than expected.
The copper bull case got a fresh proponent today as Scotiabank’s Orest Wowkodaw is back with a market update barely a month after his last one, and the message is that things are tightening faster than expected. Three major supply blows — Grasberg cuts, Kamoa-Kakula downgrades, and Barrick parking the Reko Diq project — have forced a rewrite of the deficit math.
How material? Scotia now sees a 2026 deficit of 529kt and a 2027 deficit of 375kt, up from 350kt and 99kt previously. That’s 1.9% and 1.3% of demand.
The medium term looks even uglier on the supply side, with the 2030 deficit ballooning to 1,010kt from 713kt. Wowkodaw’s blunt take: “Overall, the recently updated multi-year guidance downgrades to Grasberg and Kamoa-Kakula, combined with the deferral of Reko Diq, are material to the market and represent a very bullish development for the Cu price outlook.” Copper is flat today at $6.03 but has weathered the growth risks from the Iran war surprisingly well and that’s a good sign. The supply backdrop is so weak that demand growth of just 1.4% per year is now enough to balance the market through 2028, down from 1.75% previously, according to Scotia.