Copper Weekly is a Benchmark podcast offering a concise 10–15 minute briefing on the copper market. Hosted by Michael Finch and Albert Mackenzie, each episode breaks down the week's price action and the latest developments shaping copper. Drawing on Benchmark Mineral Intelligence's supply and demand expertise, with regular analysts and guest speakers, it connects short-term market moves to longer-term structural shifts. It is aimed at anyone who trades, produces, consumes, or tracks copper as a key metal for electrification and decarbonisation.
Episodes
Unprecedented: Why Copper Is So Hard to Forecast Right Now
Copper Weekly returns with a role swap. With Mike away, Carlos Piñero, principal analyst on Benchmark’s copper team, takes the host’s chair and puts the questions to Albert. They cover record Chinese import premiums, a possible scrap stockpile hiding in China, copper slipping below $14,000/t as the AI narrative wobbles, and what is really behind Chile’s production slump.In this episode:Chinese Pre
LME Week 2026 Wrap: Uncertainty Built on Uncertainty
Copper Weekly returns from the tail end of LME Week. In summary; plenty of good gossip, but fewer answers than usual. With US tariffs and the concentrate benchmark both unresolved, Mike and Albert unpack why the market is waiting for someone else to move first.In this episode:A Market Waiting to Decide - Albert explains why this LME Week felt unusually inconclusive. The key decisions on US tariffs
LME Week 2026 Preview: Five Key Themes Shaping the Copper Market
Copper Weekly returns with a longer-than-usual pre-LME Week special. Mike and Albert work through the five themes dominating meetings in London and set to shape conversations across LME Week: record-low treatment charges, European cathode premiums, US tariff uncertainty, long-term supply gap fears, and the question hanging over every meeting, why copper is still so expensive.In this episode:Treatm
Cobre Panama, Chile Strikes and China's Concentrate Slowdown
Copper Weekly returns with a different line-up. With Mike away, Albert is joined by Carlos Pineiro, Benchmark's supply analyst, dialling in from Santiago. It's a supply-heavy week: Cobre Panama's government report, a slowdown in Chinese concentrate imports, and strike votes at two of Chile's biggest mines.In this episode:Lessons from Geneva. Albert reports back from the copper
China Stocks Hit Multi-Year Lows Ahead of Golden Week
Copper Weekly returns for episode eighteen, recorded on the road from Geneva as Albert wraps up a week of smelter visits and financial meetings across Austria and Switzerland. Prices held relatively firm despite some pressure, with China's approach to Golden Week, a fast-growing but opaque Russian concentrate story, and rising strike tensions in Chile all in focus.In this episode:Steady Price
China Demand Returns: Copper Rushes Back Towards Record Highs
Copper Weekly returns for episode seventeen, with copper clawing back much of the ground it lost the week before and pushing back towards its all-time high. Mike and Albert dig into China's role in the recovery, question whether a widely reported mine supply contraction really holds up, and look ahead to a potentially pivotal week of US-China diplomacy.In this episode:China Leads the Bounce —
Tariff Delay Talk Sends Copper Prices Lower
Copper Weekly is back for episode sixteen, and after months of near-relentless record highs, the market finally took a breather. Mike and Albert unpack a sharp pullback driven by tariff-delay speculation, hotter US inflation data, and a dollar rally, before digging into why the underlying story of an artificial, US-driven tightness remains fully intact.In this episode:Why Prices Fell — A Reuters r
Copper's Record Rally: Is It Actually Justified?
Copper Weekly returns for episode fifteen, with the LME three-month price notching yet another all-time high. But this week Albert takes a step back and asks the harder question: is any of this actually justified? A candid, somewhat blunt discussion follows on frothy sentiment, record US imports, and why H1 production disruptions were already priced in long before the headlines caught up.In this e
A Calm Between Two Storms as Volatility Looms
Copper Weekly is back for episode fourteen, with Mike returning fresh from leave to a market that, on the surface, has been trading quietly sideways. Beneath that calm, though, Albert digs into a fascinating stock picture, a wider look across the base metals complex, and a candid warning about volatility ahead.In this episode:Stocks in the Wrong Place — LME on-warrant material is heavily concentra
LME Stocks Rise and Fall, Chile's Mining Picture Assessed by Supply Analyst Carlos Piñeiro
Copper Weekly returns for episode thirteen. This week we are joined by Carlos Piñeiro a principal supply analyst at Benchmark, based in Chile. Albert and Carlos talk about rapidly moving LME stocks, AI-related copper demand, and take advantage of Carlos’s expertise to dig into the supply side of the market.In this episode:Significant amounts of LME copper have been cancelled from the LME in the la
A Third Week of Record Highs; LME Tightness Bites
Copper Weekly returns for episode twelve, marking a third consecutive week of all-time highs. But this time the story isn't just about price, it's about shape. Mike and Albert dig into a dramatic backwardation on the LME, what it reveals about nearby tightness, and why the rally already looks to be unwinding by the time of recording.In this episode:A Different Kind of Record — This week&
LME Copper Hits New Records as Treatment Charges Collapse
Copper Weekly is back for episode eleven, and the headlines write themselves: the LME cash price has now spent six consecutive days above $14,000/t, its longest run at that level ever. Mike and Albert dig into what's driving the record run, why treatment charges have collapsed to fresh lows, and lay out detailed scenarios for how the US tariff situation could play out. They also answer listen
Copper Nears All-Time Highs as US Imports Surge
Benchmark's Copper Weekly is back for episode ten. Mike and Albert unpack a week of standout price action, record-breaking US import flows, and a mining equities picture that's turning heads across the industry.In this episode:Approaching All-Time Highs — Copper pushed close to $14,000/t during recording, its strongest level since early June. Albert explains why weather disruption in Chi
Call to Arms or Cause for Alarm? Codelco's Scott Crooks on the Supply Gap
Copper Weekly returns for episode nine — and this week the show does something different. For the first time, Mike and Albert are joined by a special guest: Scott Crooks, principal analyst at Codelco, who brings deep experience from both research houses and one of the world's largest copper producers. Together they tackle one of the most talked-about and most misunderstood concepts in the mar
Falling Stocks, Rising Prices and a Return to Fundamentals?
Copper Weekly returns for episode eight — Mike and Albert unpack a week where copper prices pushed to their highest since early June. The big theme? For once, the market appears to be moving on genuine fundamentals rather than sentiment alone, as stocks draw down sharply across both the LME and China.In this episode:Back to Fundamentals — Copper's cash price pushed above $13,800/t for the fir
Chile’s Production Challenges Continue: Supply Analyst Ivan Llancas Joins to Discuss Chile's Mining Industry
Copper Weekly returns for episode seven — This week, we are joined by Ivan Llancas, senior supply analyst, based in Chile. Albert and Ivan discuss the challenges facing mining in Chile, alongside falling LME on-warrant stock, continuously high US copper imports, and flaring Iran-US tensions, and what all that means for the copper market. In this episode:Iran-US Tensions Flare Up — The fragile peac
Antofagasta, Spot-Linked Pricing and the Benchmark Shake-Up
Copper Weekly returns for episode six — and while the US tariff saga rumbles quietly in the background, the real focus this week is a potential structural shift that could reshape how the entire copper concentrate market is priced. Mike and Albert take a deep dive into Antofagasta's reported move towards spot index-linked treatment charges and what it could mean for the benchmark system that
Silence on Section 232: Reading Between the Lines
Copper Weekly is back for episode five — and this one was meant to be the big tariff reveal. Mike and Albert deliberately delayed recording to Wednesday July 1st to capture the long-awaited US Section 232 announcement on copper. The result? Silence. No announcement, no tariff, no clarity. So instead, the pair use the occasion to step back and examine the deeper logic behind US copper protectionism
The End of the Benchmark? Antofagasta Could Shake the Concentrate Market
Benchmark's Copper Weekly returns for episode four — and after last week's peace deal optimism, the mood has shifted once again. Fresh tensions over the weekend have left the market in wait-and-see mode, while a potentially landmark shift in how the concentrate market is priced has set tongues wagging across the industry.In this episode:A Fragile Peace and a Sideways Market — The Strait
Acid, Arbitrage and What the Iran Deal Means for Copper
Benchmark's Copper Weekly is back for episode three — and this week there is one story that dominates the conversation above all else. The Trump-Iran peace announcement sent shockwaves through financial markets, and copper was no exception. Mike and Albert unpack what it means for prices, sentiment and the physical supply chains that underpin copper production.In this episode:The Peace Deal a
Noise or Signal? Reading Copper's Latest Moves
Benchmark's Copper Weekly is back for episode two — and with host Mike Finch holding the fort in London and analyst Albert reporting live from Washington DC, this week's conversation covers a market where macro forces are firmly in the driving seat.With copper prices easing back slightly from last week's levels, Mike and Albert unpack whether the recent equity sell-off and Middle Ea
State of Copper: The Structural Shifts Redefining the Market
Welcome to Copper Weekly – Benchmark's brand-new podcast cutting through the noise of global copper markets. In this inaugural episode, host Mike Finch and Copper Analyst & Market Reporter, Albert Mackenzie, sit down to do something a little different: instead of diving straight into the week's moves, they zoom out and ask the bigger question — why is copper where it is, and what got
