Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Copper prices, which more than doubled last year, are set to plunge as speculators unwind positions and global inventories expand, according to David Threlkeld, president of metals trader Resolved Inc.

“We’re going to see a catastrophe in the market,” said Threlkeld, who first got the world’s attention in 1996 when he showed that hoarding by Sumitomo Corp.’s Yasuo Hamanaka would lead to a collapse. Prices may slump to less than $1 a pound, he said by phone. That about 67 percent less than today’s levels.

Copper, used in pipes and wires, sets the pace for other industrial metals. A slump in prices may reduce profits at mining companies including Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. and drag other commodity prices lower.

Some 90 percent of buying “has been from speculators,” said Threlkeld, who has traded the market for more than 40 years. “Whether they are exchange-traded fund speculators or China pig farmer speculators it doesn’t really matter, because that buying is going to come back to the market,” he said from Arizona.

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