Copper Rises, Erasing Earlier Drop, as Chile Strike May Expand
2008-04-25 10:08 (New York)
By Claudia Carpenter
April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Copper climbed in London, erasing an earlier decline, as strikes in Chile revived speculation supplies will slide.
Employees at the El Tenienta mine of Chile's Codelco, the world's biggest producer, walked off their jobs to protest insecure conditions created by striking contract workers, radio station Cooperativa said. Employees of Codelco contractors began the strike at Andina and Salvador mines last week.
``If you've got two mines out of operation and a third on and off, that's relatively bullish,'' said Michael Widmer, an analyst at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in London. ``The supply side is the key issue for copper.''
Copper for delivery in three months rose $10 to $8,535 a metric ton as of 2:57 p.m. on the London Metal Exchange. Prices had dropped as much as $155.
New York copper futures were little changed at $3.8745 a pound ($8,544 a ton).
Grupo Mexico SA said it may close its largest copper mine and inventories fell in China, the world's biggest consumer.
Inventories in warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange slid 12 percent in the past week, the second such drop in a row, data from the exchange today showed. Warehouses monitored by the LME reported a 1.3 percent loss today, the exchange's daily report showed. |
