Refined copper from Peru cost US$ 13.14 per kg in March, a record then. June beat that mark and August closed at US$ 13.79 per kg, 4.9% above March.
Refined copper that Brazil imports from Peru cost US$ 13.14 per kg in March 2026, a new all-time high for this trade flow. The previous record, US$ 12.62 per kg, had been set in February. The gap was 4.2%. With data through August, though, March's high has been surpassed: the price reached US$ 13.79 per kg in the latest closed month. The March episode turned out to be the first step of a longer climb.
February broke the old mark and March broke February's. The figure is the average price per kilogram paid on Brazilian imports of refined copper in unwrought form, mostly cathodes, the raw material for wire, cable and heat exchangers. It does not measure how much entered the country, only what each kilogram cost. For buyers, that is the information that reaches the cash register first, before any shift in volume shows up in monthly reports. The record is the price per kilogram from Peru, not the average across all origins. Even so, four percent more on a raw material used in electric cables is margin that disappears at the factory.
April fell back to US$ 12.77 per kg, 2.8% below March. May stood at US$ 12.75, 3.0% below, and it looked as if March would remain a one-off peak. June undid that reading: US$ 13.56 per kg, 3.1% above March and a new record for the series.
July came in at US$ 13.78 and August at US$ 13.79, 4.9% above March. Before March the series had been climbing month by month: US$ 11.71 per kg in January and US$ 12.62 in February. The last two months were almost identical, with less than 0.1% between them. The level rose and held. August is the highest price of the nine months from December 2025 to August 2026, and July is the second highest. Since December 2025, when the price stood at US$ 10.78 per kg, the cumulative rise is 27.9%. Volume told a different story. March brought about 6.4 thousand tonnes; August, about 3.7 thousand. The higher price came with smaller purchases, but the data do not say whether one caused the other.
Peru is one of the largest copper producers in the world, and the price of refined metal follows the international quote, set on exchanges such as the London Metal Exchange (LME). Plausible explanations include demand tied to electrification and a tight concentrate supply. The Brazilian customs data do not split the weight of each factor, so this stays in the realm of hypothesis. What the series does confirm is the outcome: the Brazilian importer now pays more per kilogram than it did in March.
Brazil's wire and cable industry relies in part on imported cathode, so the rise reaches the plant before it reaches the shop window. Because the price is set in dollars, the exchange rate matters too. As we showed in Brazilian crude to Portugal hits all-time high price, the year already holds other unit-price records in Brazilian imports. The refined copper import panel shows the full series by origin. If the price falls again, March and June will have been isolated peaks; if it rises again, the US$ 13 per kg level becomes the reference. For buyers, the most useful habit is to follow the monthly price per kilogram together with the imported volume.
Watch whether the August level holds or the price gives back part of the rise. The dollar quote for the metal and the exchange rate set the cost in reais. Other origins may show the same climb, a market signal rather than a Peruvian one.
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Acceleration
