Copper Falls in London After Grasberg Strike Ends; Tin Gains
By Chanyaporn Chanjaroen
April 23 (Bloomberg) -- Copper
dropped in London after a four- day protest at Indonesia's Grasberg, the
world's second-largest copper mine, ended over the weekend. Tin and nickel
gained.
Copper surpassed the $8,000-a-metric-ton mark last week for the first
time in seven months on speculation a labor dispute at the Freeport McMoRan
Copper & Gold Inc. mine, which contributed 3.6 percent to world supplies last
year, would have cut supplies. The workers and the management settled the
dispute on April 21.
The settlement was ``significant,'' Jon Bergtheil, head of global
metals strategy at JPMorgan Securities Ltd. in London, said today by phone.
``Grasberg was key to copper's gains to $8,100 last week.''
Copper for delivery in three months on the London Metal Exchange, fell
$85.50, or 1.1 percent, to $7,869.50 a metric ton as of 12:32 p.m. local time.
The contract rose 3.2 percent last week, the seventh weekly increase.
Declining inventories and more imports into China, the world's largest
user, are likely to cap copper's drop. Stockpiles monitored by the LME fell for
the sixth consecutive session to 168,150 tons, the LME reported today. That's
the lowest since Dec. 12.
China more than doubled imports of the metal in March to 208,014 tons,
according to data issued by the Beijing-based customs office today. That's the
highest since at least January 2004, according to Bloomberg data.
Southern Copper
Workers at Southern Copper Corp.'s Ilo smelter in Peru probably will
start a strike as early as April 28 after they rejected a wage offer from the
company, Jesus del Castillo, a spokesman for the Mining Federation, said on
April 20. The federation is a Lima-based group of unions that represent about
28,000 mine workers in Peru.
Southern Copper will petition the Labor Ministry to declare the strike
illegal since workers ignored standard procedures before breaking off talks,
company spokesman Alberto Giles said in a phone interview from Ilo, 850
kilometers (530 miles) southeast of Lima.
The price of copper will probably go higher as inventories dwindle and
demand from China grows, Robin Bhar, an analyst at UBS Ltd., said today by
phone from London. ``Zinc is also our favorite'' for the same reasons, Bhar
said.
Zinc stockpiles monitored by the LME dropped 1,525 tons, or 1.5
percent, to 99,175 tons, the lowest since March 15. The contract for delivery
in three months was unchanged at $3,680 a ton.
Nickel gained $100, or 0.2 percent, to $48,800 a ton. The contract
rose to an all-time high of $50,150 on April 10.
Imports of the metal into China, the world's largest user, gained 5.5
percent in March to 7,740 tons from the same month last year, according to the
government data. For the first three months, imports jumped 47 percent on year.
Tin Exports
Tin gained $125, or 0.9 percent, to $13,800 a ton, after declining 4.7
percent last week.
China, the world's largest tin producer, more than doubled exports to
4,540 tons in March, according to government data released today. Exports
increased as the price of tin gained 21 percent this year, trading at an
18-year high of $15,100 on April 18.
Still, stockpiles of the metal monitored by the LME rose 90 tons to
8,845 tons, close to a 17-month low of 8,710 reported on April 19.
PT Yinchenindo Mining Industry, an Indonesian tin producer, plans to
export as much as 8,000 metric tons of the metal this year after it received an
export license.
``We hope to gradually start exporting by the end of April in a small
quantity,'' Andy Li, marketing and finance controller of the Jakarta-based
company, said today in a telephone interview from the city. ``We target exports
in a range of 6,000 to 8,000 tons for the rest of this year.''
Also on the LME, lead dropped $18 to $1,962 a ton and aluminum fell
$17 to $2,825.
To contact the reporters on this story: Chanyaporn Chanjaroen in
London at [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Last Updated: April 23, 2007 07:43 EDT
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