Members of the IWCC Copper Wire Rod Committee met in Gothenburg, Sweden, last week. The key topics covered in the meeting included:

  • An update of recent IWCC work including the India Seminar, the 2026 Technical Seminar and the Copper for Sustainable Plumbing marketing campaign.
  • A discussion on the structure of the committee and how to widen the group’s engagement and insight into global markets.
  • Members were then shown the latest market statistics for wire rod production and demand in all major markets including Europe, North America and China. This developed into a wider discussion on wire rod demand in Europe by region in 2024.
  • Nick Snowdon, Mercuria, gave members an interesting and insightful presentation on the potential growth in copper demand in various sectors of the energy transition, including AI datacentres, EVs, renewable energy infrastructure and grid hardening.
  • Members then heard a presentation on sustainability from ABB Group.
  • Finally, members held a roundtable discussion on the significant growth of the Indian semi finished product market in recent years.

We would like to thank Nick Snowdon, Piia Kuningas and Juha-Pekka Kivioja for their presentations, and to Fredrik Adlercreutz for chairing the meeting.

The meeting also included a dinner at Heaven 23 restaurant, and a visit to the World of Volvo Museum, where members heard a comprehensive history of Volvo cars and trucks since 1927 and heard a presentation from Johanna Trillkott about sustainability and the key role copper will play in electrification and the EV industry.

We would like to thank everyone who attended this meeting, and look forward to the next meeting on the 16th of October in London during LME week. For more information, please contact us at iwcc@coppercouncil.org.