(Kitco News) - Copper prices are at the beginning of a big run, said Cupel Advisory Director Nicole Adshead-Bell.
On Thursday Adshead-Bell recorded Digging Deep with Kitco Correspondent Paul Harris.
Copper had a good week, hitting a seven-month high on news that China plans to mothball loss-making smelters. Reduced supply strengthens the long-term bull case for copper, noted Adshead-Bell.
"The price is moving now [because] market participants are finally starting to realize that there is a very material, looming structural-shortage in primary copper supply," said Adshead-Bell.
She added that the copper breakout has been a long time coming. Energy transition and artificial intelligence is going to require a lot more copper, and years of sub-$4 a pound copper has not been enough incentive to get miners to invest in new mines.
"I think this is the very beginning of what I would say is a parabolic rise in the copper price," said Adshead-Bell. "We need that [price] rise to incentivize new supply. Copper is the critical commodity. Without copper none of the green energy, net zero and energy transition occurs."