Newsletter · · Ashutosh Agarwal

Materials Weekly - Week of June 7, 2026: Copper Rips to Records, Hormuz Puts Fertilizer Back in Play

Metals, critical minerals and ag inputs newsletter for the week of June 7, 2026. Copper printed its fourth straight weekly all-time-high close while a Hormuz-driven sulfuric-acid shortage emerged as the shared chokepoint linking copper leaching, laterite nickel, and phosphate fertilizer.

Materials Weekly

Week of June 7, 2026: Copper Rips to Records, Hormuz Puts Fertilizer Back in Play

Materials Weekly, Metals, Critical Minerals & Ag Inputs | Week ending June 7, 2026

Quiet week on the tape, loud week in the chatter. Copper printed its fourth straight weekly all-time-high close, and almost every podcast that touched commodities kept circling back to one second-order story: the Strait of Hormuz closure is choking sulfuric acid, and that single input quietly links copper leaching, laterite nickel, and, out of nowhere, fertilizer. Steel and the big ag-input names were largely absent from the audio this week, so we've flagged those gaps honestly rather than padding. Here's what the smart commodity voices were actually saying.

TL;DR

  • Copper made new all-time highs (~$6.57–$6.70/lb) on a "dire" supply story and resilient AI/power demand; it's up 40–45% over twelve months and was called "the rock star for Q2."
  • The sleeper risk is sulfuric acid. A Hormuz-driven shortage is now cited as a real constraint on SX-EW copper, laterite nickel margins, and phosphate fertilizer production, a genuinely under-discussed read-through.
  • Critical minerals are trading "like the AI trade," with experts warning of "flavor of the month" risk even as DoD/DoE push permitting and funding programs.
  • Fertilizer is "back in vogue" for the first time in years, driven by the same acid bottleneck, not by crop demand.

What's new

Copper is the headline. Craig Hemke pegged it at $6.57/lb with four consecutive weekly all-time-high closes and a fresh monthly record into end-May, up 3% intraday on the day he recorded while gold fell $70–100 (The KE Report). Dave Erfle had it at $6.65/lb, "a very strong price," with the view that copper is "setting up to be something like gold did a year earlier" (The KE Report). Quantix's Don Casturo went furthest, citing ~$6.70/lb and calling the supply picture "dire" against "fairly resilient" demand (Commodity Culture).

On supply, Casturo quantified it: the market "lost 1.5 million tons of production last year between outages in mines like Grasberg and Cobre Panama, which are extending into 2026," roughly 6–8% of mine supply (Commodity Culture). Sultan Ameerali described smelter treatment charges collapsing to the point that "these smelters…are taking the inputs for free…there's a definite shortage there" (Mining Stock Daily).

On demand, Peter Boockvar tied roughly half of US 2026 GDP growth to AI/data-center buildout, with hyperscaler spend "over $800 billion currently, over a trillion next year," his primary bull case for copper, aluminum and steel (The KE Report). Ameerali put it more bluntly: "every trade is an AI trade. And in particular with copper, just industrialization and…build out" (Mining Stock Daily).

The debate

Not everyone is all-in on copper as the cleanest deficit story. Boockvar pushed back on the consensus, arguing copper's supply-demand imbalance is "more in line" than the genuinely acute deficits he sees in platinum and silver, i.e., the copper deficit thesis is "less extreme" than the crowd believes (The KE Report). The other live debate is equity vs. metal: David Morgan flagged that copper mining equities are not following the metal higher, a potential mispricing if the price holds (Soar Financially), though the KE Report tape shows some producers ripping (see below), so the dispersion is wide.

On rare earths, the bull/skeptic split is sharper. Shad is constructive, "I really like MP Materials," expecting more government money, while Boockvar warns Western projects must compete with Chinese producers who run "not at profit, but to just provide magnets both internally and externally," leaving him uncertain "on the quality of rare earths as an investment in the coming years" (The KE Report).

The names in play

Copper producers (12-month equity performance, per KE Report hosts): Lundin Mining up >200%, Southern Copper (SCCO) up >100%, Antofagasta up >124% over twelve months but negative over the trailing three, and Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) up 67%, described as "underlevered to the copper move" (The KE Report).

Copper M&A/strategics: HudBay Minerals is acquiring Arizona Sonoran Copper at an all-time-high valuation ("a perfect scenario" exit); Faraday Copper is partnered with BHP in Arizona; and Teck, Rio Tinto and BHP are all active backing junior developers (The KE Report). Ameerali plays it via Surge Copper (Bird deposit, BC; ~20% held by African Rainbow Minerals), PFS due end-Q2 2026, run at $6–$7/lb sensitivity (Mining Stock Daily).

Rare earths/critical minerals: MP Materials (MP), Lynas, Energy Fuels (uranium + REE) and Neo Performance Materials ("done incredibly well"). On antimony: Mandalay Resources merged into Alkane Resources, and America's Gold and Silver is partnered with US Antimony on an Idaho circuit (The KE Report).

Battery metals: Ameerali exited Nickel 28 (NKL), a JV in the Ramu laterite project in PNG, specifically over sulfuric-acid margin risk, noting "the nickel market is pretty well supplied" with Indonesia as the swing producer (Mining Stock Daily). Mosaic (MOS) was cited as having been "pummeled" in May on the same acid shortage (Mining Stock Daily).

Read-throughs

The most actionable cross-current is sulfuric acid as a shared chokepoint. Boockvar (citing Robert Friedland) framed the Hormuz-driven acid shortage as a "nobody thought about" second-order hit to heap-leach/SX-EW copper (The KE Report). The same input drives Ameerali out of laterite nickel and crushed Mosaic's stock (Mining Stock Daily). Translation: a single Middle East supply line now connects copper cathode, nickel and phosphate fertilizer, worth screening for acid-intensive process exposure across the materials book.

Second read-through: fertilizer is back as a macro trade, not an ag-demand trade. Shad: "guess what's back in vogue? Fertilizer. We haven't talked about fertilizer in years, but the Strait of Hormuz closure has put that on," he's meeting potash and phosphate names again (The KE Report).

What changed

  • New high regime in copper: four straight weekly record closes is a fresh data point, not a continuation (The KE Report).
  • Hormuz closure is now the dominant supply narrative across metals and ag, replacing the prior China-demand framing; Boockvar says the bottlenecks "will flow through for years" (The KE Report).
  • Critical-mineral velocity warning: Corey noted these stocks now move "like the AI trade" and it's "hard to get the pricing on things like antimony or tungsten," a fresh caution flag, not a thesis (The KE Report).
  • Notable silence: no meaningful podcast coverage this week of steel mills (NUE/STLD/CLF), aluminum names (AA/CENX), or the big fertilizer caps (NTR/CF/CTVA), and no Section 232 tariff specifics. We'll flag if that changes.