Middle East turns to copper with expected 40% surge in electricity demand by 2035

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Key takeaways: Electricity demand surge: Middle East electricity demand to rise 40% by 2035, increasing copper’s importance in energy transition Copper trade dynamics: Iran leads production; UAE and ...

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}\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nMiddle East turns to copper with expected 40% surge in electricity demand by 2035\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2026-01-15 13:00 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://www.fastmarkets.com/insights/middle-east-turns-to-copper-surge-electricity-demand-by-2035/><strong>Fastmarkets</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Key takeaways:\n\nElectricity demand surge: Middle East electricity demand to rise 40% by 2035, increasing copper’s importance in energy transition\nCopper trade dynamics: Iran leads production; UAE and ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://www.fastmarkets.com/insights/middle-east-turns-to-copper-surge-electricity-demand-by-2035/\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"BK4139","symbol_name":"生物科技","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://www.fastmarkets.com/insights/middle-east-turns-to-copper-surge-electricity-demand-by-2035/","article_id":"2603989874","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":[],"rights":{"source":"fastmarkets_highlight","url":"https://www.fastmarkets.com/insights/middle-east-turns-to-copper-surge-electricity-demand-by-2035/","rn_cache_url":null,"directOrigin":true},"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2603989874","pubTimestamp":1768453200,"columns":[],"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"fastmarkets_highlight","name":"Fastmarkets"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"Discover the importance of copper in the Middle East in the context of energy transition and changing market conditions.","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"fastmarkets.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"BK4139":"生物科技","IEA":"Infrastructure and Energy Alternatives, Inc.","BK4129":"建筑与工程","EQ":"Equillium Inc.","BK4568":"美国抗疫概念","UAE":"iShares MSCI UAE ETF"},"translate_title":"中东转向铜，预计到2035年电力需求将激增40%","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"UAE":1,"EQ":1,"MHGmain":1.5,"IEA":1,"QCmain":1.5},"content_text":"Key takeaways:\n\nElectricity demand surge: Middle East electricity demand to rise 40% by 2035, increasing copper’s importance in energy transition\nCopper trade dynamics: Iran leads production; UAE and Turkey dominate copper imports and consumption in the region\nSaudi copper investments: Saudi Arabia attracts major copper projects, including Vedanta’s $2 billion investment, with production starting in 2026\nSupply challenges: Geopolitical tensions, trade route security, and financing issues hinder copper exploration and trade growth\n\nAs the Middle East considers “life beyond oil”, Fastmarkets takes stock of the region’s copper industries and energy transition strategy, from the mining sector to sovereign wealth fund investment.\nThe Middle East is a major consumer of energy; and while 78% of energy investment is expected to go to fossil fuels in 2025, this is projected to fall to 66% by 2035 as investments in grids, storage and low-emissions electricity increase, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2025, published in November.\nThe World Energy Outlook 2025 expects peak electricity demand in the Middle East to rise by around 40% by 2035 compared with 2025, underscoring the need for additional investment.\nCopper and lowering energy emissions\nCopper is at the heart of a more electrified energy system, resulting in increasing demand and tightening supply dynamics that have seen extreme market conditions in 2025.\n“These countries are thinking of life beyond oil, and they’ve got a young, growing, educated population [that] has identified mining and mineral processing as one of the real growth poles for the economy in the future,” said Jim Rutherford, director at Manara Minerals, at the London Indaba 2025 conference.\nManara Minerals is an investment venture between the Saudi Arabian Mining Company (Ma’aden) and the Public Investment Fund (PIF).\nIn terms of production, the Middle East’s biggest copper players are Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt. However, their share of the global marketplace is minimal, with Iran mine production totaling 336,000 tonnes in 2024 (1.46% of world total), and smelter production in primary and secondary blister and anode reaching 354,900 tonnes, according to International Copper Study Group (ICSG) data.\nAfter Iran, Turkey produced 127,000 tonnes of copper in concentrates/SX-EW in 2024, and 141,000 tonnes in primary and secondary copper.\nIn terms of treatment charges (TCs) Fastmarkets calculated its weekly copper concentrates TC index, cif Asia Pacific – a mid-point between smelter and trader buying levels – at $(69.70) per tonne on January 2, unchanged after reaching an all-time low on December 24.\nIran is the only Middle Eastern country that exports refined copper – around 114,000 tonnes per year – while the rest are net importers. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the biggest of them, having imported more than 413,000 tonnes in 2023 (4.2% of world total) without producing any.\nMeanwhile, the biggest user of refined copper in the region was Turkey at 535,000 tonnes in 2024 (1.96% of world total), followed by the United Arab Emirates at 432,000, and Saudi Arabia at 197,000 tonnes.\nCopper cathodes in the Middle East\nThere were no refined copper stocks in UAE LME warehouses as of the ICSG’s December data, while Iran warehouses contained only 13,800 tonnes of material.\n“Middle East buyers don’t buy registered copper,” a trader in the region explained. “The UAE, Saudi Arabia, [are] pretty insulated from the prices in China in Europe. They dictate their own price.”\nAccording to the trader, copper premiums this year are “way above anything in the past,” describing these levels as “extremely loss-making numbers” going into the UAE.\nCopper equivalent grade (EQ) cathode serves as a primary raw material for producing electrolytic copper wire rods, which are drawn into electrical wiring and cables utilized in construction and electronics.\nFastmarkets assessed copper EQ cathode premium, cif Europe at $150-170 per tonne on Tuesday January 6, flat from the previous session on December 30.\nA trader in Europe recently noted big volumes into the Middle East, with Abu Dhabi as the main port. “Warehouses are mainly in Jebel Ali, but Abu Dhabi [is] starting to have some bonded facilities,” they said.\nAccording to the trader in Europe, demand has been “very stable in the Middle East [over the last] 2-3 years” with three big copper projects starting in Saudi Arabia.\nThe trader projected “overall big growth” in the Middle East region. “There will definitely be a year-on-year increase,” they said. They later added, however, that the market will take a while to see significant liquidity from new consumers.\nIndian multinational Vedanta in November 2024 announced plans to invest $2 billion in Saudi Arabia for three copper projects, including a 400,000-tonne-per-year greenfield copper smelter and refinery, and a 300,000-tpy copper rod project in Ras Al-Khair on the country’s east coast.\nAccording to recent media reports, the company is on track for commercial production at its copper-rod facility in Saudi Arabia in 2026 and plans to award exploration contracts by mid-January 2026 to begin digging for copper and gold at the Jabal Sayid mineralized belt.\nChallenges, barriers to entry\nTrade routes and investment\nSecurity of trade routes is a challenge for the region, according to Remi Piet, Co-Founder and Senior Partner at Qatar-based Embellie Advisory.\nMiddle East trade route security issues stem from geopolitical conflicts, particularly Houthi attacks in the Red Sea targeting traffic in the Suez Canal. Additionally, threats to the Strait of Hormuz also create costly diversions via the Cape of Good Hope, incurring higher costs and longer shipping times.\n“The second element central [to the discussion] is the question of financial barriers limiting investment,” Piet said at the Resourcing Tomorrow conference’s Government Roundtable Feedback Session in 2025. “The mining sector – especially in terms of exploration – has seen difficulties in its capacity to raise capital… this is also the case for artisanal miners.”\nAccording to Piet, this was a key topic – the ability to “find good sources of capital to move forward on smaller-scale productions, but making sure you provide a long-term roadmap in terms of how capital could be disbursed, and [the potential] exit strateg[ies] for different investors.”\nPiet pointed to alternative routes for financing through different international organizations, as well as the rise of different actors such as sovereign wealth funds from the Middle East, “or others that have been extremely active in ensuring the security [of] supplies for some of their industries.”\nGeopolitical tensions\nPiet also touched on other challenges, including geopolitical tensions affecting global supply chains, competition over scarce resources – “especially over projects near completion that have a very high cost of entry for investors” – and exploration projects suffering from lack of financing.\nDespite these, the ICSG has observed growth in a number of Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) countries, which helped to offset recent weakened demand for refined copper in the EU and Japan due to high copper prices, it noted in a press release issued on December 19 2025.\nWith electricity demand for space cooling nearly doubling between 2010 and 2024 in one of the hottest regions in the world, the Middle East’s motivation to secure electricity supply in the coming years seems clear.","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"1","news_tag":"economic","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"tenantId":"TBGLOBAL","deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.36.0","shortVersion":"4.36.0","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2603989874","isCrawlerRequest":true}