Copper

Overview

Copper is a reddish metal that conducts heat and electricity very well and is easily drawn into wire. Most copper goes into electrical equipment such as wiring and motors. It is also used in construction, for example in roofing and plumbing, and in industrial machinery such as heat exchangers.¹

Demand is broad rather than niche, but copper has moved up the policy agenda because electrification needs a lot of it and new mine supply is slow to arrive. In 2025 the United States added copper to its List of Critical Minerals. The EU lists copper as both a critical and a strategic raw material.²³⁴

Where it comes from

World mine production was an estimated 23 million t of copper content in 2025. Chile was the largest producer, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Peru.³ Some mines produce cathode on site by solvent extraction–electrowinning (SX-EW) instead of shipping concentrate to smelters. SX-EW accounted for about 17% of refined output in 2024.⁵

• Chile5,300,000 t · 23%
• Congo (Kinshasa)3,200,000 t · 14%
• Peru2,700,000 t · 12%
• China1,800,000 t · 8%
• Russia1,300,000 t · 6%
• United States1,000,000 t · 4%
• Zambia940,000 t · 4%
• Other countries6,773,000 t · 29%

World total shown is the sum of USGS country estimates; USGS rounds it to 23 million t. Source: Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Copper

Refining is more concentrated than mining. China produced about 14 million t of the estimated 29 million t of refined copper in 2025, far more than it mined.³ The International Copper Study Group (ICSG) puts 2024 refined production at 27.5 million t, of which about 17% was secondary copper refined from scrap.⁵

• China14,000,000 t · 48%
• Congo (Kinshasa)2,800,000 t · 10%
• Chile1,700,000 t · 6%
• Japan1,400,000 t · 5%
• Russia950,000 t · 3%
• United States850,000 t · 3%
• Other countries7,270,000 t · 25%

Includes primary and secondary refined copper. Country figures sum to 28,970,000 t; USGS rounds the world total to 29 million t. Source: Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Copper

Identified world resources were estimated at 2.1 billion t in 2015, including about 600 million t already mined, and undiscovered resources at a further 3.5 billion t.³

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What it is used for

In the United States, building construction is the largest market for copper and copper alloy products, followed by electrical and electronic products and transportation equipment. Brass and wire-rod mills account for about 80% of the copper recovered from scrap.³

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Grades and forms

Copper is traded at every stage: as concentrate from the mine, as anode from the smelter, as refined cathode, and as semi-finished products and scrap. Copper and copper alloy products reach end users through brass mills, rod mills and foundries.³

Trade and policy

The United States mined about 1.0 million t of copper in 2025, about 70% of it in Arizona. Its net import reliance for refined copper rose to 57%. Refined imports almost doubled to about 1.7 million t, and refined stocks rose to about 450,000 t by year-end. Chile supplied 68% of US refined copper imports in 2021–24.³

US copper trade measures under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act:

In the EU, the Critical Raw Materials Act sets 2030 benchmarks for strategic raw materials such as copper: 10% of EU consumption from EU extraction, 40% from EU processing and 25% from recycling, and no more than 65% from any single third country.¹⁰

This section is factual background, not legal or trade-compliance advice.

Recycling and substitution

In the United States, old scrap supplied about 160,000 t of copper in 2025, and about 760,000 t was recovered from new manufacturing scrap. Scrap contributed about 30% of US copper supply.³

Aluminum can replace copper in power cable, electrical equipment, automobile radiators and cooling tubes. Optical fiber can replace it in telecommunications, plastics in plumbing and drain pipe, and titanium and steel in heat exchangers.³

Sources

1. Copper: element information, properties and uses. Royal Society of Chemistry, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩

2. Final 2025 List of Critical Minerals. Federal Register, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩²

3. Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Copper. U.S. Geological Survey, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹

4. EU critical raw materials. European Commission, Joint Research Centre (RMIS), accessed 2026-10-03. ↩

5. The World Copper Factbook 2025. International Copper Study Group, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩²

6. Adjusting Imports of Copper Into the United States (Proclamation 10962). Federal Register, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩ ↩² ↩³

7. Strengthening Actions Taken To Adjust Imports of Aluminum, Steel, and Copper Into the United States. Federal Register, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩

8. Further Adjusting the Tariff Regimes for Imports of Aluminum, Steel, and Copper Into the United States. Federal Register, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩

9. Request for Public Comments on the Proposed Implementation of Duties on Additional Aluminum, Steel, and Copper Derivative Articles. Federal Register, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩

10. Regulation (EU) 2024/1252 (Critical Raw Materials Act). EUR-Lex, accessed 2026-10-03. ↩