Shanghai Futures Exchange copper cut more than 2 percent losses to close down 1 percent at 34,850 yuan ($5,448) a tonne on Monday. ShFE nickel ShFE zinc and aluminium all ended down 2 percent each. Nine large copper producers in China agreed an initial plan to cut refined metal output at the weekend, following moves already announced by China's nickel and zinc makers. But the step did little to stoke metals prices.
"Across the metals space, one of the big concerns is that even with prices at multi-year lows, the degree of production curtailments has been viewed as modest," said Citi analyst Ivan Szpakowski in Hong Kong. "They don't seem to have made a final decision on how much copper could be cut and in the absence of any concrete production cuts, prices have gone nowhere.
Unless you get western firms also cutting (nickel output) the Chinese move is not going to be enough to support the global picture." China's nickel producers said on Friday they plan to slash output of refined metal and nickel pig iron (NPI), the first major co-ordinated move in the industry globally to lift prices out of their worst slump in more than a decade.