With China back to its normal import buying of copper, prices of the raw commodity will likely surge to $9,500 a metric tonne by the second semester of 2012, the Japanese Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd. said.

This will further be compounded by the global tightening of supplies correlating to the widening debt crisis affecting the Eurozone and China's economic slowdown.

Yuka Kageyama, a commodity derivatives analyst at the Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd., said in Bloomberg News, copper prices will grow 25 percent to reach $9,500 a metric tonne from the 2011 close of $7,600 a metric tonne. Last year, copper fell 22 percent, its first drop in three years, based on the London Metal Exchange LMEX Index of six primary metals including copper and aluminum.

Declining stockpile inventory will also encourage copper prices to rise, although prices may fall as low as $6,500 a metric tonne to an average price of $7,950 a metric tonne for 2012, the bank said in a January note to clients.

The Bank of America Merrill Lynch forecast copper to $7,750 a metric tonne in 2012 and $7,313 a metric tonne in 2013, while Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. said the raw commodity metal used to create pipes, tubes and wires, will average $3.83 a pound or $8,444 a metric tonne in 2012 and $4.08 a pound in 2013.

On Thursday, copper prices rose to a more than two-month high above $US8,000 a metric tonne after China's December inflation dropped as well as two successful European debt auctions.

"The European debt-crisis issues will be the key for most commodities this year," Kageyama said in Bloomberg News. "We expect that China may ease its monetary policies in the first half and Europe's problems may recede later this year, paving the way for a rally among base metals as supplies will remain tight."