People keep acting like copper only works if China goes back to full-speed growth.



But China already IS the copper market.



The country accounts for roughly 58% of global refined copper usage and remains the largest copper refining hub on Earth. Even slower growth on a base this massive still matters enormously.



The difference now is that new demand layers are appearing everywhere:



* AI infrastructure
* Massive grid upgrades
* EV adoption
* Robotics manufacturing
* Defense spending
* India industrialization



That’s why analysts still project global copper demand climbing from \~28M tonnes today to more than 42M tonnes by 2040, with possible supply deficits approaching 10M tonnes.



Supply growth simply isn’t keeping up.



That’s partly why projects like NovaRed’s (NRED / NREDF) Wilmac are becoming more interesting.



Current project scale:



* 16,078 hectares
* \~160 km²
* \~30,000 football fields
* \~2.7x Manhattan



The scale comparisons are actually accurate, and “district-scale copper-gold exploration project” is probably the best description.



North Lamont recently also returned:



* Copper values up to 1,068 ppm
* Gold up to 0.44 g/t
* Silver up to 7.5 g/t
* Molybdenum up to 36.5 ppm



Still early-stage obviously.



But large-scale copper exposure in stable jurisdictions is becoming increasingly strategic as the AI era accelerates global electricity demand.

The Copper Bull Case No Longer Depends Only On China