Industrial Metal Prices

The bellwether industrial metal, monthly since 1960. The step change after 2004 is China's industrialization absorbing a decade of supply, and the level since has never returned to the twentieth-century range.

Copper, aluminum, nickel and zinc on one axis. They share an industrial demand cycle but differ in supply structure, which is why they diverge for years at a time despite moving together through recessions.

The narrower markets. Tin is the electronics solder metal with supply concentrated in Indonesia and Myanmar, lead is dominated by recycled lead-acid batteries, and iron ore is charted on its own axis because it is quoted per dry metric ton unit rather than per tonne.

Annual averages in cents per pound. COMEX printed a record $4.80/lb in 2025e. USGS attributes the step-up primarily to tariff uncertainty on US copper imports, not to a new mine shortage.

Where US copper products go: buildings first, then electrical, then vehicles. This is product use, not world mine demand.

The free series USGS prints, citing Benchmark. It is not a Fastmarkets spot path. 2022 printed $63,700/t. 2025e printed $9,000/t.

USGS/Argus annual averages. Magnet oxides collapsed from 2022 and recovered only modestly. Lanthanum and cerium stayed near $1/kg. Mine tonnes and magnet economics are different businesses.

World mine production and reserves by country, from the USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries. Switch commodity to see how differently concentrated each one is: copper supply is spread across the Andes and central Africa, while gallium, rare earths, graphite and tungsten are effectively single-country markets. Reserves often sit somewhere other than production, which is where the next decade of supply politics comes from.