Metal Price News - Forecast 2025
The global economies are moving at a slow pace, and so are the metal markets.
Across all metals, the inventories are full and demand is modest, and this will probably continue in 2025.
Metal forecast 2025
Broadly speaking, we expect stable prices across our main metals in 2025:
Macroeconomic developments
USA
The US economy is quite strong – unlike all the other major economies.
Unemployment continues to fall, and inflation is more or less under control. In 2025 US growth is expected to remain at the current level.
The major unknown factor in 2025 is Donald Trump and his policies as president.
In trade and commodities, there is a particular focus on his tariff measures. In foreign policy, his strategies in the Middle East and Ukraine could impact energy prices or global supply chains.
China
In China, the situation is vastly different.
The economy is sluggish, growth is slowing and both imports and exports are lower than expected.
Throughout 2024 – most recently this December – the government has announced several stimulus packages to stimulate growth, but we have not seen the effects yet. There is usually a 6-9 month delay in the effect of economic measures, so we do not expect to see major movements in the Chinese economy in 2025.
It is also important to note that the Chinese private consumption does not follow stimulus packages from the government 1:1. This was reflected in retail sales for November, which increased by 3% when the expectation was 5%.
The average Chinese consumer puts their savings in real estate, and as long as the Chinese real estate sector is struggling, the Chinese consumers are hesitant to increase their spending.
Europe
European economies are also struggling.
The German and French economies in particular are showing signs of weakness, and the uncertainty is spreading to the rest of Europe.
Inflation has been falling throughout 2024, and this has enabled the European Central Bank (ECB) to cut interest rates. They have done so four times this year.
It is expected that the ECB will cut interest rates another 4-6 times in 2025 to help the European economies pick up speed, but there are no signs that European economies will increase significantly in 2025.
Copper
On copper, we are keeping an eye on China right now:
On the one hand, the financial markets expect that the stimulus packages will cause copper prices to rise, but on the other hand, the sluggish real estate sector will pull the price down.
If we consider the long term, there is a need for more copper mines globally, but the investments are lacking. When the investments do come, it usually takes 3-5 years from the start of the investment until actual mining begins.
At the same time, demand is expected to grow in the coming years to satisfy the demand from e.g. the green transition and construction.
The result could be a shortage of copper in 2026-2027, and this may be reflected in the price in 2025.
Aluminium
In 2024, we saw an increase in aluminium prices due to a shortage of the raw material alumina. The supply of alumina appears to have been restored and is not expected to be a problem in 2025.
One of the factors that could affect aluminium prices in 2025 is the risk of drought in China.
In recent years, we have seen several droughts in China due to climate change. The drought cause electricity prices to rise, because part of the Chinese electricity comes from hydropower.
To be able to distribute power to the citizens – at a reasonable price – aluminium production has been shut down in these drought periods.
This could happen again in 2025 and cause unpredictable price fluctuations.
Stainless steel
There is not a high demand for stainless steel at the moment.
Yet – facing a slow market – China is still expanding production.
This is partly because the Chinese property market and wind turbine production are doing worse than expected.
On the whole, we do not expect major movements in the market in 2025, neither up nor down. There is plenty of material, and everyone is essentially waiting for the economies to pick up again.
The European carbon reduction tax CBAM is an unknown factor that we have not seen the full effect of yet.
Scrap
The scrap price has been stable for quite some time. It is hovering at the low end of the scale because the general demand for stainless material is low.
In the long term, we expect that the demand for scrap will increase with the green transition. Both to avoid emptying the mines completely and to limit the carbon footprint from stainless steel production.
However, the question is whether there is enough scrap in the world to support future demand.
On the one hand, we will produce less scrap if we become better at maintaining and repairing our products.
On the other hand, China has seen a huge consumption boom over the past 30-40 years, and those goods will also become scrap at some point, just as we have seen in Europe.
Nickel
The nickel price spiked in the spring but has fallen down again, and we expect it to remain at the current level for quite some time.
There has long been a large global supply of nickel, and it is currently greater than the demand.
Indonesia is already the world's largest producer of nickel, with approximately 50% of the world market, and the country is building more mines to expand capacity.
With the current situation in China, we do not expect demand to increase significantly. But if the stimulus packages have the desired effect and the US economy can keep up the pace, demand could start to rise.