Epignosis Insights Launches Weekly Global Copper Scrap Price Tracker Amid Record Market Volatility

Epignosis Insights, a market research and brand intelligence consultancy, today announced the launch of its Global Copper Scrap Price Tracker, a weekly research product designed to give procurement teams, recyclers, fabricators and investors a single, cross-checked view of copper scrap pricing at a moment when the broader copper market is moving faster than at any point in recent memory.

The launch follows a turbulent September for copper markets. Benchmark COMEX futures touched an intraday record above $6.72 per pound in late August before a report that a planned U.S. tariff escalation on refined copper imports was losing momentum triggered a 4.7% single-session decline on 10 September, one of the sharpest reversals the market has seen this year. The London Metal Exchange's three-month contract set its own all-time high above $14,600 per tonne in early September, a roughly 47% year-on-year gain. Against that backdrop, copper scrap grades, which typically track refined prices with a lag and a discount, have moved through an unusually wide range, leaving buyers and sellers with limited visibility into where fair value actually sits from one week to the next.

Copper scrap pricing used to be something a recycler could check once a week and feel confident about. That is no longer true," said a senior research director at Epignosis Insights. "Tariff headlines are now capable of moving the market several percentage points in a single trading session, and a scrap yard or a wire-rod mill needs a source that pulls together government data, association benchmarks, company disclosures and consultancy forecasts into one place, rather than relying on a single feed that may already be stale by the time it is read.

The tracker is built on a deliberately diversified sourcing model. Each weekly edition draws on U.S. Geological Survey production and recycling statistics, grading standards published by the Recycled Materials Association (formerly the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries), quarterly disclosures and investor calls from major producers including Freeport-McMoRan, and demand-and-supply modelling from consultancies such as Wood Mackenzie and S&P Global, alongside wire-service and financial-press reporting from outlets including Bloomberg and MINING.com. No single source is used more than once within a given edition, a methodological discipline Epignosis Insights applies across its entire commodity-tracking portfolio to reduce the risk of amplifying any one provider's bias or error.

This week's inaugural edition finds COMEX copper closing at $6.65 per pound on 21 September, a modest weekly recovery from a mid-week low near $6.50 that followed renewed uncertainty over the U.S. tariff timeline. U.S. bare bright copper wire, the highest-value scrap grade, traded in a $5.10 to $5.43 per pound range across regional yards, while No. 1 and No. 2 grades held a step below that on the standard grade hierarchy. In India, MCX-linked copper pricing moved to roughly ₹1,403 per kilogram, continuing to track both futures and rupee movements for import-dependent domestic scrap buyers.

The report also situates this week's price action inside the structural forces reshaping the copper market over the next decade and a half. S&P Global's most recent modelling projects global copper demand climbing to roughly 42 million metric tons by 2040, driven increasingly by data-centre and artificial-intelligence infrastructure alongside traditional grid and construction use, while global mine production is projected to peak near 33 million metric tons around 2030. Recycled copper scrap is expected to more than double over the same period, from about 4 million metric tons currently to 10 million metric tons by 2040, but even that expansion falls short of closing the projected gap on its own. Wood Mackenzie has separately estimated that meeting 2035 demand will require more than $210 billion in new mine investment, against roughly $76 billion actually committed over the preceding six years, underscoring why scrap is increasingly viewed as a strategic feedstock rather than a residual one.

Epignosis Insights designed the tracker for a specific set of readers: procurement managers at brass mills and wire-rod producers who need a defensible weekly benchmark for contract negotiations; scrap yard operators and recyclers weighing collection and processing economics; OEM sustainability and supply-chain teams monitoring recycled-content sourcing; and investors and analysts tracking the copper-and-electrification theme across mining, industrial and recycling equities. Each edition pairs narrative analysis with data visualizations, including a weekly price-trend chart, a regional benchmark table and a long-range supply-demand chart, and closes with a short FAQ section addressing the questions the firm's clients ask most often.

The Global Copper Scrap Price Tracker is the latest addition to Epignosis Insights' existing slate of monthly commodity tracker reports, which already cover green hydrogen, recycled cardboard, methanol, semiconductor wafers, display panels, PVC and global LED chip pricing. The firm said it plans to publish the copper scrap tracker on a weekly cadence going forward, with each edition compiled, cross-checked and published under the Epignosis Insights name as the primary source of record.

Organizations interested in accessing the Global Copper Scrap Price Tracker, or in commissioning a customised version scoped to a specific region, grade mix or supply chain, can contact Epignosis Insights' research team through the firm's website.

About Epignosis Insights

About Epignosis Insights: Epignosis Insights is a market research and brand intelligence consultancy serving clients across FMCG, BFSI, automotive and industrial sectors. The firm produces market-sizing studies, competitive intelligence, brand health tracking and syndicated commodity price tracker reports, compiled from government, association, corporate and consultancy sources and published under its own byline.

Media Contact

Epignosis Insights Research Team
Pune, Maharashtra, India
research@epignosisinsights.com