US Produces More Copper Than It Needs, Beating China On Self-Reliance— But One Critical Bottleneck Could Derail It

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence has said that the U.S. can cater to 146% of its annual copper demand from domestic and overseas mines and scrap. This is a significant contrast to China, the world’s largest consumer, which can only meet 40% of its demand. Benchmark’s analyst Albert Mackenzie pointed out that the U.S. produces more copper than it consumes, making it more self-reliant than China in terms of raw materials, reported the Financial Times on Wednesday. The analyst told FT that while people often ...