Persian Gulf oil producers are paying up to $40M for tanker "shuttle runs" through Hormuz, WSJ reports. Some sailors are being offered up to $25K per trip. VLCC charter rates from the Gulf to China recently topped $1.2M a day, up from about $231K before the war.

⚡🇨🇳China refines more copper than the next 9 countries combined! Among the world's 21 largest copper refineries, Chinese plants hold 6,350 kt a year of capacity. That's 56% of the 11,396 kt total. More than 🇮🇳India, 🇨🇱Chile, 🇮🇩Indonesia, 🇷🇺Russia, 🇯🇵Japan, 🇺🇸US, 🇨🇩DR Congo, 🇰🇷South Korea and 🇩🇪Germany together. Copper is the metal AI runs on. 🔹 A data centre uses about 27 to 33 tonnes of copper per MW of capacity. 🔹 A 1 GW AI campus therefore needs roughly 30,000 tonnes, before you count the grid connection. 🔹 Every new transmission line, transformer and substation is mostly copper. Demand is catching up with that. Copper demand expect to rise from 28.3M tonnes in 2025 to 42.4M by 2040, while mine supply peaks around 2030. LME copper hit a record $14,672 a tonne on 9 September. The mines are spread out, in Chile, Peru, DR Congo and Indonesia. Turning their concentrate into cathode, the metal that grids and data centres actually use, mostly happens in China. So whoever controls refining has leverage over the AI build-out and the grid upgrade at the same time. The West has spent billions moving chip production home. Copper refining hasn't had the same attention, even though data centres, power lines and transformers all depend on it. The dependence runs both ways, though. China doesn't mine enough copper for its own smelters and needs concentrate from Chile, Peru and Africa. Supply is also getting tighter at the mine. Chile's output fell 9.4% year on year in July and Escondida, the world's largest copper mine, was down 22%. Should the West treat copper refining as strategic infrastructure, the way it treats chip fabs? image source: Mining Visual