The Worl d Copper Factbook 2019 International Copper Study Group 36 0 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 5 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 7 0 0 0 8 0 0 0 9 0 0 0 10 000 19 60 196 5 1 970 19 75 1 9 8 0 19 85 199 0 1 99 5 2 0 0 0 200 5 2 010 20 15 Av e r a g e An n u a l Co p p e r Pr i c e s L M E Gr ade A Ca s h 196 0 201 8 US pe r ton n e So urce IC S G Cu r r e n t C o ns t a nt 2 0 1 2 The Global Copper Market and the Commodity Copper Copper as an y other good or mer c ha ndise is trad ed betw een producers and consu m ers Produce r s sell their present or future production to clients who transform the me tal in t o shapes or alloys so that downstream fabricators can transf orm th ese in t o diff erent en d use products On e of the most important factors in tradi n g a commodity such as copper is the settlement pri c e for the present day spo t price or for future days Excha n ges The role of a commod i ty excha nge is to facilitate an d ma ke transparent the process of settling pr ices Three commodity exchanges provide the facilities to trade coppe r Th e London Metal Exc h ange L ME the Commodity Exchange Division of the Ne w York Mercantile Exchange COMEXN Y M EX and th e S h anghai Futures Exch ange S HFE In these excha nges pric es are settled by bid and offer reflecting th e markets perce p tion of supply an d dem a n d of a commodity on a parti c ular day On the LM E cop p er is traded in 25 tonne lots and quoted in US doll ars per tonne on COMEX copper is trade d in lot s of 25000 poun ds an d quoted in US ce nts per pou nd and on the SH F E copper is traded in lot s of 5 tonnes and qu ot ed in Re n m inbi per to nne Mo re re cently mi ni contrac t s of smaller lots sizes have been in t r od uce d at th e e x changes Exchanges also provide for the tradi n g of futur e s and options contrac t s These allow producers and consu m ers to fix a price in the fu t u r e thus providing a h e dge against price variatio n s In this process the par t i c ipation of speculato r s who are ready to bu y th e risk of price variation in excha nge for monetary reward gives li quidi ty to the market A futures or options cont ract defi nes the quality of the product the size of the lo t delivery date s delivery w a rehouses and other aspects r e lated to th e trading pro c ess Contracts are uniqu e for each excha nge Th e e x istence of futures contr a cts also allows produce r s and their clie nts to ag r e e on different pri c e settl ing schemes to acco mmodate diff erent interests Exchanges also provide for warehousing facilities that enabl e mark e t participa n ts to make or take ph ysic al delivery of copper in ac cor d a n c e with each exchanges criter ia