Copper prices rose for a third straight day on Wednesday, a day after the red metal gained nearly 4 percent on concerns of supply disruptions, especially in Chile, the world's largest copper miner. Codelco said on Tuesday it continued to investigate the impact of a rock slide at its Chuquicamata mine.
The rock slide late on Sunday affected a conveyor belt and interrupted movement of mineral to a concentrator plant, cutting production at the mine by some 1,000 tonnes per day in copper concentrate.
By 0359 GMT, copper for delivery in three months on the London Metal Exchange was up $60 at $7,500 a tonne. On Select, the electronic trading platform, the metal had traded between $7,490 and $7,508.
On Tuesday, copper ended up $280, or 3.9 percent, at $7,440. The rock slide at the Chuquicamata mine added support for copper prices, along with the dollar's weakness against other currencies in early Asian trade, an LME dealer in Hong Kong said.
With the supply disruption at the Chuquicamata mine and ongoing labour talks in Chile, Peru and elsewhere, analysts said that a drawdown in LME stocks was also supportive.
In electronic trade, the most active September copper fell 0.60 cents to $3.4550 a lb after trading between $3.4415 and $3.4620 on COMEX. Shanghai copper futures followed LME prices higher, with the most active October contract up 700 yuan from the previous close to end the morning session at 65,010 yuan ($8,126) a tonne. It rose as high as 65,900 yuan.
"Copper futures in Shanghai face resistance around 65,000 yuan," said Chen Ting, general manager at Zhejiang Dayue Futures Broker. Zhou Yixing, a trader at Jiangsu Suwu Futures Brokerage, said: "Cash copper trading is still not active as consumers purchase less." Spot copper prices in eastern China rose 750 yuan to between 64,450 and 64,700 yuan a tonne.
In other metals, the most active Shanghai October aluminium futures was down $100 at 18,700 yuan a tonne, while LME aluminium was down $26 at $2,504. LME zinc was unchanged at $3,225.
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