An “extreme” shortage of copper over the coming decade could...

An “extreme” shortage of copper over the coming decade could drive the price of the crucial commodity up as high as $US100,000 ($140,000) per tonne as supplies effectively “run out”, one expert has warned.

The looming supply shock is being driven by surging demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and other “green” technologies, coupled with chronic underinvestment and lack of expertise required to build new copper mines, according to Goldman Sachs metals strategist Nicholas Snowdon.

Speaking with Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast on Wednesday, Mr Snowdon predicted copper could rise from its current price of around $US9300 ($13,000) a tonne to $US15,000 ($20,000), and “we don’t rule out [that] copper could be a $US50,000 ($70,000), could be a $US100,000 ($140,000) commodity”.

Mr Snowdon explained that such a previously unheard of level was because, unlike energy and agricultural commodities such as oil or wheat, the price of copper only made up a very small part of the cost of the end product.

“So for the copper price to drive demand destruction in cars, in electronics, you’re going to have to see a massive outsized move in the copper price to achieve the necessary increase in the cost of the total good to drive that demand destruction,” he said.

“The thing about the copper market is that we’ve never been in such an extreme set of fundamental circumstances. We’ve never had to go to end demand destruction pricing to achieve a rebalancing.”

Copper is the third most widely used metal in the world, with global demand of about 25 million tonnes per year.