BT is set to earn more than £2 billion over the next decade by selling surplus copper cabling as it transitions the UK’s telecommunications network to full-fibre broadband. The telecoms company is benefiting from sharply rising copper prices, driven in part by increased demand from the artificial intelligence (AI) sector, electronics manufacturing, and renewable energy industries.
Copper recently reached a record closing price of $14,294 (£10,550) per tonne, near the all-time intraday high of $14,500, amid concerns about a potential global shortage. BT has entered into recycling agreements with EMR, the UK’s largest cable granulation firm, receiving upfront payments totaling £204 million since 2024 for copper extracted from decommissioned network cables.
The company’s Openreach subsidiary is focused on upgrading 30 million homes to full-fibre connections by the end of the decade. As part of this shift, Openreach has been dismantling legacy copper networks, recovering a record 9,147 tonnes of copper in the year ending March 2026—almost three times the volume recovered in the previous year. Since initiating its copper recycling program in 2023, BT has stripped and sold a total of 22,347 tonnes of copper.
Forward sale contracts with EMR, each covering around 20,000 tonnes of copper over four years, currently extend until 2028. While exact contract terms are undisclosed, the value of the copper expected to be recovered was previously estimated at £1.5 billion. However, the surge in copper prices, along with projections from S&P Global that demand will double from 25 million metric tonnes today to roughly 50 million metric tonnes by 2035, suggests the full value of BT’s copper inventory could exceed £2 billion at current market rates.
Industry experts highlight copper’s increasing strategic importance in the modern economy. Abby Chicken, head of sustainability at Openreach, stated that recovering and recycling copper during the full-fibre rollout supports waste reduction, facilitates the UK's transition to renewable energy, and helps maintain supply chain stability amid escalating global demand.
The increase in copper prices has also led to a rise in theft incidents. Last year, Openreach reported two thefts within a month in St Neots, Cambridgeshire, resulting in damage to nearly a mile of underground cables. To combat this, the company has introduced anti-theft measures such as coating cables with synthetic DNA markers and UV tracers, although these protections cannot be applied to cables already buried underground.
As BT continues its nationwide upgrade, it plans to recover up to 200,000 tonnes of copper through the 2030s, aligning with the broader shift away from legacy copper infrastructure toward faster, full-fibre technology.