Shanghai copper down in quiet trade

Shanghai copper futures softened on Monday despite firmer London prices, as quiet turnover and relatively high prices kept speculators and investors at the sidelines.
Copper on the Shanghai Futures Exchange moved lower on Monday, with the most active December contract closed the session down 340 yuan, or 0.5 percent, at 71,160 yuan a tonne from Friday's close of 71,500 yuan. "Speculators abandoned the Shanghai copper market due to small-scale movement, while hedgers quit the market because of mounting prices.
Thus the trading volume is Very light," said Lie Rong, analyst at Great Wall Futures in Shanghai. Shanghai prices ignored rising prices on the London Metal Exchange, where low turnover pushed up volatility with the key three-month copper contract gaining around 0.8 percent to $7,590 per tonne from $7,530 at the London close on Friday.
The rise came even after workers at Chile's Codelco Norte, the biggest division of state copper mining giant Codelco, considered a company proposal to start contract talks. In other metals, aluminium rose around 0.6 percent to $2,733 per tonne from $2,718 at Friday's close.
London Metal Exchange tin was roughly flat at $10,050 per tonne against the close last week, when it had as much as 12 percent to a contract high of $11,000, after the closure of more than 20 small smelters in Indonesia.
The Indonesian government wants to regulate tin mining in Bangka Belting Province after a demonstration by hundreds of miners against the closure of three smelters turned violent in October.
"Every time there's noises about disruptions in supply like what's happening in New Caledonia regarding nickel and Indonesia regarding tin, it's helping to move the market a long way," Andrew Harrington, a natural resources analyst at ANZ Bank in Sydney, said. Nickel was untraded sitting at $31,800 after hitting a new high of $32,625 per tonne on Friday on threats to supply in New Caledonia and tight stocks.
France's Eremite said on Friday a general strike on the Pacific island of New Caledonia was costing it around $1 million a day and had left its Doniambo nickel smelter with some 10 days of feedstock. Eremite, 60 percent owner of Society El Nickel (SLN), which produces around 70,000 tonnes of nickel concentrate a year, some 5 percent of world production.
Shanghai aluminium contracts were mixed, with the most active January contract adding 130 yuan to close the session at 20,990 yuan per tonne from 20,860 yuan.