Odd Lots · Saturday, September 12, 2026
Copper prices have reached new highs, driven by increasing demand for electrification, data centers, and national security concerns. However, production is not keeping pace, with a potential decline in output this year, exacerbating supply chain issues. Robert Friedland highlights that current production levels are insufficient to meet projected demand for the next 18 years.
“And copper is central to everything we do. This super high technology studio, which is enabling us to talk to the whole world, is completely dependent on copper.”
“And at the rate of current global economic growth with 8 billion people on this planet, to maintain 3% GDP growth, absent the electrification of the world economy, absent electric cars, and let's not even get started on data centers, we need to mine that same amount of copper that we mined in the last 10,000 years in the next 18 years.”
“Our global production of copper this year is down, even though prices are up.”