Copper Tests April Trendline as Mine Supply Slides 1.1%

Fifth Test of the April Trendline

Copper is pressing on the ascending support line that has anchored its chart since April, and the fifth attempt on that trendline lands just as the metal's supply story sours. Global mine output contracted 1.1% during the first half of 2026, and analysts now expect full-year production to be flat or slightly lower, which would make this the first annual decline since 2017. The commodity has gained more than 15% so far in 2026, though the tightness sits in ore rather than finished metal, which complicates the simple bullish case.

The line has been stubborn. It survived four earlier probes, across June, July, September and the first days of October. Price now sits just under a horizontal resistance band around $6.70 per pound, a ceiling that has capped rallies since May, and a confirmed breakout above it would open a path toward $6.95, copper's September record high. The chart is less friendly than that ceiling implies: highs have been falling since the record, squeezing price into the trendline. If support gives way, the 0.382 Fibonacci retracement near $6.31 stands as the next floor. The daily Relative Strength Index (RSI) reading sits close to 50, leaving bulls and bears evenly matched.

Copper has also decoupled from crypto. Its record close in August came alongside gains in gold and Bitcoin during the debasement-trade rally, but the two have since split: copper has gained about 33% over the past year, while Bitcoin's spot price trades near $81,700, about 25% lower. The two trades even compete for hardware, because miners pivoting toward AI queue up alongside data centers for transformers and wiring loaded with copper. Unlike monetary expansion, copper's premium is built on mined scarcity, which makes this trendline a live test of its role as a hard-asset hedge. Only a decisive close either way settles which side of that argument holds.

Outages Cut 600,000 Tonnes From 2026 Output

Two mine failures drive the revision. A Sprott report estimates that shutdowns at Grasberg in Indonesia and at Kamoa-Kakula in the Democratic Republic of Congo wiped out about 600,000 tonnes of expected 2026 production, equal to roughly 2.5% of global mine supply. Morgan Stanley's revised outlook now sees mine supply flat or slightly lower for the year, flipping a decade of steady growth in mined output. Replacement is slow: an S&P Global study puts the average time from discovery to production at 17 years.

Strain is already visible in concentrate pricing. Antofagasta sold Centinela concentrate at treatment charges of minus $310 per tonne, effectively paying the buyer to take the material, per local market reporting. The refined market tells a different story: International Copper Study Group data show a 131,000-tonne refined surplus in the first half, because smelters leaned on scrap feedstock. For smelters the arithmetic still works; for miners and their buyers, it does not.

Demand pressure is building from an unexpected corner. Industrial Info Resources estimates that a 1-gigawatt AI data center campus can require up to 50,000 tonnes of copper, and while the metal represents under 0.5% of a data center's budget, delays in transformer and cable deliveries pose the larger risk to buildout schedules. Electrification, grid buildouts and AI construction all pull on the same wire and transformer supply. The long-term gap is wider still: S&P Global sees demand in 2040 reaching 42 million tonnes, leaving supply about 10 million tonnes short. Stockpiling shows up in warehouse data too: Comex warehouse stocks climbed to a record close to 700,000 tonnes in September, as traders front-run a proposed 15% tariff on refined metal imports starting in 2027. That stock build is financial positioning rather than physical consumption, which is why the refined surplus and the ore deficit can coexist.

The $6.63 Ceiling Scores 100

Copper's standoff now has a scored shape. COINOTAG data shows the last price at $6.63, up 0.68% over 24 hours, and COINOTAG's composite rates $6.63 resistance at 100/100, anchored by the 20-day, 50-day and 100-day moving averages, with support at $6.55 also rated 100/100. The 24-hour range of $6.54 to $6.65 shows the metal briefly dipping below that support before recovering. Momentum offers little direction: the daily RSI reads 48.0 on a daily downtrend, while perpetual open interest stands at $8,063,211, a modest derivatives footprint. A daily close above $6.63 would confirm the level as broken; a slide back under $6.55 hands the trendline decision to sellers.