Bottleneck record, bottleneck_assessment_v1
Copper
Refined copper for windings, cables and wiring. World mine supply is concentrated and slow to expand; price and supply growth are the observed components, inventory, utilisation and lead time have no registered source.
Reading
In plain words
Pressure is 85 on a 0 to 100 scale (the weighted 85th percentile of its components' own histories) with 1 of 6 components available, 25 percent of the weight, as of 2026-07. That is below the 50 percent coverage the thresholds require, so no pressure label is given. Missing: Supply growth gap, Producer concentration, inventory depletion, utilization and 1 more. No response signal is registered for this record (no capacity pipeline is registered for copper and the only curated copper producer (Freeport-McMoRan) belongs to no capex pulse group). Adding capacity takes 10 to 20 years by the cited source, so today's response is read against that horizon.
rules fired: coverage 0.25 < 0.5
Is the problem being solved?
Pressure and response
- pressure0 to 100, left
- responsenone, right
85
0 to 100, coverage 25%, 1 of 6 components, as of 2026-07
--
no response signal registered
no capacity pipeline is registered for copper and the only curated copper producer (Freeport-McMoRan) belongs to no capex pulse group
no capacity pipeline is registered for copper and the only curated copper producer (Freeport-McMoRan) belongs to no capex pulse group
Pressure components
Percentiles, weights and what is missing
| Component | Weight | Series and transform | Percentile | Raw | Period | History | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Price pressure 12-month percent change of the IMF global copper price (FRED PCOPPUSDM) | 0.25 | copper-price WLD pct_change_12 | 85.48 | 38.6082 | 2026-07-01 | 403 | present obs 156367, 156368, 156369 ... |
Supply growth gap world mine production growth (USGS), sign reversed: slower growth ranks as more pressure | 0.2 | copper-mine-production WLD yoy_growth_negated | -- | -- | -- | -- | missing 2 observation(s) of copper-mine-production give 1 transformed period(s), fewer than the 5 the rank needs |
Producer concentration share of world mine production from the three largest producing countries (derived from USGS) | 0.15 | copper-top3-concentration WLD level | -- | -- | -- | -- | missing 2 observation(s) of copper-top3-concentration give 2 transformed period(s), fewer than the 5 the rank needs |
inventory depletion Exchange and reported inventories relative to consumption. | 0.15 | no registered series | -- | -- | -- | -- | missing no copper inventory series is registered; cot-copper-managed-money-net is futures positioning, not inventory, and is not used candidates: LME warehouse stocks; COMEX warehouse stocks; SHFE weekly stocks |
utilization Smelter and refinery utilisation. | 0.15 | no registered series | -- | -- | -- | -- | missing no copper smelting or refining utilisation series is registered candidates: ICSG monthly bulletin |
lead time Delivery lead time for refined copper or copper products. | 0.1 | no registered series | -- | -- | -- | -- | missing no copper lead-time series is registered candidates: ISM supplier deliveries (not copper-specific); producer surveys |
Response detail
What the response signal rests on
no capacity pipeline is registered for copper and the only curated copper producer (Freeport-McMoRan) belongs to no capex pulse group
Downstream
Systems that depend on it
| Entity | Type | Hops | Centrality |
|---|---|---|---|
| Power transformer | product | 1 | 7.7 |
| Residential construction | industry | 1 | 1 |
| Transmission and distribution grid | infrastructure_system | 2 | 6.7 |
| Housing stock | infrastructure_system | 2 | 0 |
| Electricity system | infrastructure_system | 3 | 4.6 |
| Data center | facility | 3 | 1.75 |
Substitutes
Named on the dependency edges
- Primary aluminum for power-transformerAluminum windings, larger cross-section for the same current; common in distribution transformers.
- Primary aluminum for residential-constructionAluminum branch wiring and service entrance cable at a larger gauge.
- Primary aluminum substitutes_for edgeAluminum substitutes for copper in power cables, busbars and some transformer windings where weight and cost outweigh its lower conductivity.
Recycling and recovery: Recycled scrap is a significant secondary supply of refined copper (USGS); no scrap series is registered.
Expansion lead time
120 to 240 months
New copper mine, discovery to first production
Mining projects across critical minerals; copper is at the long end because of scale, ore grade and permitting.
International Energy Agency, The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions (2021)
“It has taken 16.5 years on average to move mining projects from discovery to first production.”
checked 2026-09-07
Evidence
Every number, by id
- metricPrice pressure: copper-price (WLD)pct_change_12, rank 85.48 over 403 periods, period 2026-07-01, observation ids 156364, 156365, 156366, 156367, 156368, 156369 ...
- entitygraph entity Refined copper
- edgePower transformer depends on Refined copper (requires_input, established_identity_or_engineering_relation, weight 0.4)
- edgeResidential construction depends on Refined copper (requires_input, established_identity_or_engineering_relation, weight 0.25)
- documentInternational Energy Agency, The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions (2021)lead time 120 to 240 months: It has taken 16.5 years on average to move mining projects from discovery to first production.
Bottleneck and Response monitor, model bottleneck_assessment_v1, thresholds bottleneck_thresholds_v1
A record shows two signals and never combines them.
Pressure (modeled): each available component is transformed (12-month percent change, year-over-year growth with the sign reversed for supply, level for shares and lead times), then replaced by its percentile rank (0 to 100) within its own stored history up to that period, ties counted half, after a minimum history. The score is the weighted mean of those ranks over the components present, renormalised. Coverage is the share of declared weight that has data; components without a registered source are declared with their weight, their role and candidate sources, and count against coverage. Weights are a modelling choice and are listed on every record.
Response: the capacity response ratio where a capacity pipeline exists (US electricity: the stage-weighted 24-month EIA-860M pipeline over the trailing 24 months of additions, modeled), otherwise the capital expenditure pulse of the tagged company group (matched-sample trailing-four-quarter capex growth from stored 10-K and 10-Q facts, derived), otherwise null with the reason.
Status comes only from these thresholds:
- insufficient data: coverage below 0.5, or no pressure score. No label is guessed.
- below watch: pressure below 60.
- watch: pressure at or above 60 and below 75.
- constrained: pressure at or above 75.
- constrained, response underway: constrained and the response signal clears its threshold (capacity response at or above 1.0, or capex pulse above 10 percent).
Lead time is recommended-class metadata from a small sourced table (src/data/lead-times.ts) and is stored with its citation. Substitutes and downstream systems come from the curated knowledge graph (edges where the record's entity is the dependency; entities within three hops that depend on it, with centrality_v1). Every number on a record traces to stored observation ids, pulse row ids or edge ids in the row's JSON.
History
Assessments stored
| As of | Pressure | Coverage | Response | Status | Computed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-07-01 | 85 | 25% | -- | insufficient data | 2026-09-07 |