The metal hit its highest-ever closing price of $14,294 a metric tonne on Friday, close to the record intraday high of $14,500 reached earlier this year amid global shortage fears.<\/p>\n
BT has a recycling deal with EMR, the UK\u2019s largest cable granulation company, and has now received \u00a399m upfront for thousands of tonnes of surplus stripped copper.<\/p>\n
It is the second such payment received by the telecoms company, which is rolling out full-fibre broadband to 30m homes by the end of the decade through its Openreach subsidiary, after \u00a3105m in 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n The forward sale agreements, which are understood to cover the delivery of about 20,000 tonnes of copper over a four-year period each, do not include any revenue BT makes each year if it chooses to sell recycled copper on the spot market.<\/p>\n BT recovered a record nearly 10,000 tonnes in the year to the end of March, almost three times the amount it managed in the year to the end of March 2024, and a total of 22,347 tonnes since the telecoms company began stripping and selling the cabling in 2023.<\/p>\n The record haul, which is 63% more than the 5,600 tonnes reported in BT\u2019s 2025 results, comes at a time of soaring prices which could handsomely benefit BT.<\/p>\n In the year that BT reported its first copper haul the average price for the metal was about $8,500 a tonne.<\/p>\n \u201cWe recovered even more copper cabling,\u201d said Mike McTighe, the chair of Openreach, acknowledging the potential financial benefit of the market surge, in BT\u2019s latest annual report. \u201cRemoving 9,147 tonnes from our network for recycling at a time when global demand has never been higher.\u201d<\/p>\n Howeer, the jump in value has also made the metal a target of thieves across Britain\u2019s telephone network<\/a>, railways<\/a> and even windfarms<\/a>.<\/p>\n Copper prices have been a beneficiary of the \u2018electrification of everything\u2019. Photograph: KHAM\/Reuters<\/p>\n Openreach has said it expects to be able to recover up to 200,000 tonnes, with telecoms cabling producing high-grade recycled copper, as the programme runs through the 2030s in line with moving customers on to full-fibre connections.<\/p>\n While the precise details of BT\u2019s contract with EMR, which initially runs until 2028, are not known, the market value of the copper it expects to be able to extract had previously been estimated at \u00a31.5bn.<\/a><\/p>\n However, the soaring price of copper and a future supply crunch \u2013 the rating agency S&P Global expects demand to grow from 25m metric tonnes now to about 50m by 2035 \u2013 means at current market prices BT\u2019s entire copper tonnage could be valued at \u00a32bn-plus.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | Every weekday<\/p>\n Sign up to Business Today<\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cCopper has become one of the most strategic materials in the modern economy,\u201d said Abby Chicken, the head of sustainability at Openreach. \u201cAs we connect the nation to more reliable full fibre, we\u2019re able to retire parts of the legacy network that are no longer needed.<\/p>\n \u201cRecovering and recycling that copper is the right thing to do. It reduces waste, supports the UK\u2019s energy transition towards renewables and helps keep a critical resource in circulation at a time when growing demand is putting pressure on global supply chains.\u201d<\/p>\n Amid the soaring prices, Openreach has acted<\/a> to prevent copper theft. Last year, thieves struck in St Neots, Cambridgeshire, twice in a month<\/a>, resulting in nearly a mile of underground cables being damaged.<\/p>\n In 2024, Openreach suffered copper thefts in the New Forest, affecting 128 premises<\/a>, and County Tyrone<\/a>, Northern Ireland, leaving hundreds of homes and businesses with connectivity issues.<\/p>\n Openreach is using a wide range of anti-theft measures including coating miles of underground cables with a synthetic DNA and UV tracer, called SelectaDNA.<\/p>\n This is widely used across the Openreach network and the tracer easily transfers to hands and clothing.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/500.jpg\")
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