COMEX copper futures jumped to a six-month high of $4.92 per pound in overnight Asian trade Thursday — a 3.4% intraday gain — as the union representing 2,400 workers at BHP's flagship Escondida copper mine in Chile filed formal 24-hour strike notice for May 6 if a stalled wage negotiation does not progress. Escondida produces approximately 5% of global mined copper supply, the world's largest single-asset producer.
The strike-notice timing dovetailed with the after-hours mega-cap technology earnings prints that delivered approximately $385 billion of combined upgraded fiscal 2026 capital expenditures across Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Amazon. Copper analysts at S&P Global have estimated each $100 billion of incremental hyperscaler datacenter capex translates into approximately 270,000 metric tons of incremental copper demand for power and electrical applications.
LME and Inventory Dynamics
On the London Metal Exchange, three-month copper traded at $10,820/MT in early Asian dealings, also a six-month high. LME registered copper inventories stand at 174,000 MT, up from a January low of 119,000 MT but still 36% below the five-year average for late April. Shanghai Futures Exchange inventories declined to 198,000 MT from 247,000 MT a month ago. The cash-to-three-month LME spread tightened to a $42/MT contango from $68/MT at the start of April.
Goldman Sachs commodities analyst Nicholas Snowdon said in an overnight client note that "the Escondida labor situation injects a 200,000 MT-equivalent supply risk on top of an already-tight market structurally tightening on AI buildout demand." JPMorgan's Greg Shearer raised his Q2 average copper price forecast to $10,400/MT from $10,000/MT, while raising the year-end forecast to $11,200/MT from $10,800/MT.
Equity Reaction
Copper-equity ADRs and U.S.-listed peers gapped higher in pre-market trade: Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) +4.2%, Southern Copper (SCCO) +3.6%, Antofagasta (ANTO.L) ADRs +3.8%, and