Copper is a metal soft, malleable and ductile that is used as a conductor of heat and electricity, as a building material, and as a constituent of various metal alloys. Native copper can be found at many locations as a primary mineral in basaltic lavas and as reduced from copper compounds. It can be discovered in places like the ashes of seaweeds, sea corals, the human liver, among others.
Nowadays, its major producers are Chile, Peru, and China. In 2016, Europe mined around 916 kilotonnes of copper, which is 4.6% of the world’s total production. The main copper mines in this continent are in Finland, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden.
This industry is divided into three sectors: miners, producers, and semi-fabricators and it’s compound by approximately 500 companies. It also has an estimated turnover of about 45 billion euros and employs more than 50,000 people.
So, if you are looking for investing in this industry in euros, it’s important to have real-time information about copper rates. For that, we recommend using Metals-API, a free API with fast and accurate information about the precious metals market.
With the free plan, the data is refreshed every hour and has a precision of 2 decimal points. You’ll also get 50 API calls per month in this case. You will, however, receive extra API calls and data every minute if you purchase an annual package.
What is Metals-API?
Metals-API shows the price of the most valuable metals in the world, including gold, silver, aluminum, platinum, and palladium. The website’s data can be used in spreadsheets, other websites, and mobile apps, among other places.
So, where does all of this data originate? Every minute, Metals-API gets data from over 15 reliable data sources. Banks and financial data providers are among them. As a result, the pricing you receive is quite precise.
How does it work?
To obtain the information, you must first log in to the website, obtain an API key, and then select the desired currency and metal. That’s all there is to it, and you’re free to use the API however you see fit.
Metals-API uses JSON API, or JavaScript Object Notation. This is an encoding technique that eliminates the need for each application to write its own ad-hoc code in order to connect with servers that communicate in a predefined manner. The JSON API module implements entity types, bundles, and fields, as well as data storage and data structures.
Main Features
It accepts over 170 different currencies, commodities, and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Litecoin, among others. Any quantity can be converted from one currency to another, as well as from one metal to any metal and any currency to any currency, using the same API endpoints.
The rate data in the Metals-exchange API is entirely midpoint data. Midpoint rates are calculated using the average median rate of Bid and Ask over a given time period. The Metals-API API also provides EOD / End of Day historical exchange rates, which are accessible at 00:05 GMT the day prior and are time-stamped one second before midnight.
Also published on Medium.