Pierre Lassonde (and Russ Winter <G>) say it, and you heard it here first, although I predicted April. Pierre's a tad more optimistic (and knowledgeable), so I'll defer to him.
"The way inventories have been declining, there won't be a pound of inventory left in warehouses of the world by May."
Copper Rises to 6-Year High in London on Chinese Purchases
Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Copper rose to a new six-year high on the London Metal Exchange after gaining in Chinese markets as a strike at BHP Billiton's Cerro Colorado mine in Chile entered its seventh day.
Copper for delivery in three months gained $20, or 0.8 percent, to $2,573 a metric ton in electronic trading. On the Shanghai Futures Exchange, copper for August delivery closed up 1.4 percent at 26,050 renminbi ($3,147).
``Overnight activity has once again seen Far Eastern trade/speculative type buying,'' said Robert Barham, a trader at IFX Markets Ltd. in London, in an e-mailed report. ``Since the end of Chinese New Year this area has been particularly inactive and today has seen the first signs of any significant buying.''
The Cerro Colorado strike has reduced production from the normal 130,000 tons a year. BHP Billiton spokesman Francis McAllister in Houston wouldn't give the size of the cut in a phone interview yesterday. The company doesn't plan to raise its wage offer from 3.9 percent, he said.
Supply disruptions have pushed up copper prices 12 percent this year. Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. said last month production from its Grasberg mine in Indonesia would be about 180,000 tons less than planned because of two landslides in the fourth quarter.
Production was cut at the Ok Tedi mine in Papua New Guinea after a mill failed. A strike at Falconbridge Ltd.'s Sudbury operations in Ontario is costing the Canadian company copper output of 2,400 tons a month.
Inventories of copper in warehouses regulated by the LME, Shanghai Futures Exchange and the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange have fallen 14 percent this year to 699,243 tons. That may drive copper prices to a record in 2004, Newmont Mining Corp., President Pierre Lassonde said yesterday.
``The way inventories have been declining, there won't be a pound of inventory left in warehouses of the world by May,'' Lassonde said in an interview. ``I would not be surprised to see a record copper price this year.''
Nickel was up $50 at $14,900, aluminum gained $2 to $1,673, tin added $40 to $6,480, lead climbed $8 to $817 and zinc was up $4 to $1,071. |
