Three-month copper futures settled at $13,943 per tonne on the London Metal Exchange on Tuesday, representing a price increase of 89.2 percent since the start of the year.
Christian Kopfer, a commodities analyst at investment bank Arctic Securities, says the war in Iran is having an impact. The region is a major producer of sulfuric acid, which many copper mines around the world need.
A shortage of sulfuric acid could lead to many copper mines having to reduce their production completely, Kopfer tells Dagens Industri.
Another factor, according to Kopfer, is new economic statistics from China.
The encouraging Chinese data we received the other day gives hope that demand for copper in China will pick up.
