Copper inventories at the London Metal Exchange snapped a 42-consecutive-day decline, the longest such streak since 2014, after weekly inflows exceeded 35,000 tonnes. A single-day delivery of between 17,000 and 20,000 tonnes on August 18 was the largest one-day increase since April. Before the rebound, LME copper stocks had fallen to 204,975 tonnes by August 14, with nearly half of the warehouse metal earmarked for withdrawal. The resulting scarcity pushed copper prices near a record $14,500 per tonne earlier in August and drove the cash-to-three-month premium above $500 per tonne. Deliveries by Trafigura Group, one of the world's largest commodity trading houses, helped raise available stocks by 75% in a week and compress the premium to between $170 and $248 per tonne. Structural demand from electric vehicles, power grids, renewable energy and data centers, together with production constraints in Chile and the potential for US trade tariffs to redirect metal flows, continues to support a tight market. The 35,000-tonne inflow is roughly one day of global copper consumption, suggesting the move may be temporary rather than a definitive market turning point. Copper prices near $14,500 per tonne remain historically elevated, compared with below $8,000 per tonne in mid-2023.