This chart is showing one of the most important stories in the copper market, and honestly, it is not getting enough attention.
Copper new discoveries have collapsed.
Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, the world was still finding major copper deposits in big waves. You had monster years like 1991, 1995, 2005, and 2007, where discoveries were strong enough to feed the future pipeline. That mattered because copper mines are not built overnight. A big discovery today may only become real supply 10, 15, or even 20 years later. So when discoveries are high, the market is quietly building future supply. When discoveries disappear, the market is quietly setting up future shortage.
And look at what happened after 2011. The chart falls off a cliff. Since 2018, discoveries are tiny. We are talking about the era of marginal discoveries, where the industry is still drilling, still spending, still chasing, but finding far less meaningful copper than before.
The cause is simple but powerful. The easy deposits have already been found. New deposits are deeper, lower grade, harder to permit, more expensive to build, and often located in politically difficult regions. At the same time, demand is being pulled higher by electrification, power grids, electric vehicles, data centers, renewables, and military reindustrialization.
That is the real squeeze. Demand is moving like a race car, but new supply is moving like a tired camel in traffic.
For commodities, this is bullish long term. If copper demand keeps rising while discoveries stay weak, the market eventually needs higher prices to force new supply, ration demand, or both.
