Robert Friedland

The Yangshan Copper Premium hits another all-time high... as Jimmy McGeoch at @GoldmanSachs said this morning, 'the physical copper market is tight as a drum'.

We are hearing that China’s refined copper market will continue to tighten at least through the end of the year, keeping the Yangshan premium elevated. The driving forces are on both sides: reduced domestic smelter supply and improving downstream demand.

Plans for fourth-quarter production cuts by Chinese smelters have been known about for the past few weeks... The global shortage of copper concentrates has driven spot TC/RCs to RECORD lows, and it has become increasingly hard for smelters to make an honest living, causing shutdowns.

This comes at the same time as two of China's major electricity grid operators have opened tenders for ~400 procurement packages for upcoming grid investment programs. Bids close soon, link to tender calendar: datadianli.com/calendar

Even with refined copper imports expected to rise to 270,000 tonnes per month (previously ~230,000 tonnes per month), to ease some of the pain... it is feasible that Chinese inventories could be depleted by year-end...

We could be in for a 'stock-out'.

BlueSpark Energy Systems is in Abu Dhabi for @ADIPECOfficial conference… the world’s single largest energy gathering under one roof.

@bluesparkenergy is a spin off from our @IPulseGroup family. It is led by the fantastic Kahina Abdeli-Galinier who led M&A at @Schlumbergerltd before we convinced her to join us.

BlueSpark uses @IPulseGroup’s pulsed power technology to restore the flow of oil and gas from producing wells. We pulse the wells to clear scale and restore flow, with no chemicals and no mechanical intervention… and we’ve done this over 1,000 times.

The world doesn’t need to drill more oil and gas wells, we just need to manage what we have better. We can generate more barrels, for longer, from wells that are already in production.

Oil prices are stubbornly elevated… every additional barrel from an existing well matters… which is why a number of the companies in Abu Dhabi for ADIPEC this week are already BlueSpark customers.

Yesterday we approved the final investment decision on Sunrise Energy Metals’ Syerston Scandium project in New South Wales, Australia.

Scandium is a critically important metal because it makes aluminium lighter and stronger, for applications in aerospace, defence and advanced electronics. Its use has been held back for decades because we have not had a reliable, scalable western source of supply…

Syerston is set to be the world’s first major primary scandium mine. Early works are under way, and we are targeting first production in 2028.

@SunriseMetals

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Chile’s copper commission, Cochilco, cut their 2026 production forecast by another ~330,000 tonnes to 4.94 million tonnes (5.27 million tonnes previously).

2026 is set to be the weakest year for Chilean copper production in more than two decades.

The 2027 forecast was also reduced by ~470,000 tonnes to 5.08 million tonnes (previously 5.55 million tonnes).

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Investors are concerned at the moment about whether the AI boom is slowing. The best way to answer that question is to ask the companies that are supplying these new data centres.

One such company is @Prysmian_ They supply the power cables for these facilities. Their CEO, Massimo Battaini, recently said following another RECORD quarter that he sees NO SIGNS of slowdown in demand, delays or cancellations of orders… and in fact he is seeing growth accelerating faster than previously expected, as 2026 guidance was upgraded for the second time this year.

Enquiries have arrived in such volume that they have had to turn some business away. Massimo stated that the US in particular “exceeded all our best expectations, thanks to strong demand from data centres, which we were able to capitalize on...” Prysmian plans to expand production capacity further with a second copper rod mill at their plant in Texas.

This is a great example of how the booming digital economy impacts the physical one that enables it. Data centres, grids, transformers, cooling systems, and cables all need copper, along with many other critical metals, and they rely on a complicated supply chain.

The weakest link in that chain is new supply, which has been underinvested in for at least the past decade… and unlike buying cable off the shelf of a warehouse, a new copper mine can’t be delivered by the following morning.

Prysmian quarterly results press release: prysmian.com/sites/www.prys…