Late Asian trading on Friday saw a bout of profit taking pare back copper prices to just under $6,000 a tonne, setting the stage for the metal to finish the week in negative territory. The most-traded copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange on Friday slipped 1.3 percent to 48,360 yuan ($7,042) a tonne on Friday. In Shanghai, lead dropped over 2 percent, while nickel finished up 0.2 percent. Concerns over major supply stoppages in Chile and Indonesia swept the metal to a 21-month high of $6,204 on Monday.
The positions of BHP Billiton and the striking union at its Escondida copper mine in Chile - accounting for about 6 percent of world supply - remain distant even as the two parties agreed this week to return to the table. All work has also stopped at Freeport-McMoRan Inc's giant copper mine in Indonesia, where workers plan to demonstrate against the government's decision last month to halt exports of copper concentrate, according to a union. "Copper is still finding support from the strike at BHP and from the Grasberg hold up," said a trader in Perth, declining to be identified as he was not authorised to speak with media.