US copper futures ended up over 3 percent on Tuesday, with renewed weakness in the US dollar helping to fuel a short-covering bounce in the red metal from a new three-week low reached overnight. Copper for September delivery rose 6.80 cents, or 3.2 percent, to close at $2.2120 a lb on the New York Mercantile Exchange's COMEX division.
Session range from $2.2150 to $2.1235, a new low for the benchmark September contracts since May 28. COMEX estimated futures volume at 25,789 lots by 1 pm EDT (1700 GMT). Final volume on Monday hit 38,797 lots. London Metal Exchange warehouse stocks declined 1,325 tonnes to 276,675 tonnes on Tuesday.
Cancelled warrants - metal set to leave LME warehouses - rose to 17,750 tonnes as of Monday, versus the prior day's total of 16,625 tonnes. COMEX copper stocks stood even at 60,225 short tons as of Monday. Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc's giant Grasberg copper mine was unaffected by the 6.7 magnitude quake that struck off the Papua New Guinea's island of New Ireland.