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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (11956)	4/14/2004 3:55:54 PM
From: russwinter	Respond to of 110194

Copper Futures Rise, Rebounding From 1-Month Low on U.S. Demand By Claudia Carpenter April 14 (Bloomberg) -- Copper futures in New York rose, rebounding from a one-month low amid signs of increasing demand in the U.S., the world's second-biggest buyer after China. Prices had dropped 4.6 percent in the past week, partly on concern that steps by China's government to slow its economy would cool demand for cars and other items that contain copper. The metal has climbed 24 percent this year, with U.S. copper demand in January exceeding growth in China, figures from the International Copper Study Group show. ``Demand is fairly strong,'' said Dan Borkowski, marketing manager at Hussey Copper Ltd., a Leetsdale, Pennsylvania-based maker of copper sheets and rods used in power plants. The increase in sales since October is from ``industrial expansion,'' rather than utilities building new plants, he said. Copper for May delivery rose 1.5 cents, or 1.2 percent, to $1.295 a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices rebounded from $1.259, the lowest for a most- active contract since March 9, as the dollar erased gains against the euro, making the metal cheaper for buyers in Europe. The metal has gained 79 percent in the past year. A 2.1 percent rise in global copper demand in January from a year earlier was paced by a 15 percent increase in the U.S. and 19 percent jump in Japan, compared with a 1.2 percent rise in China, Thomas Baack, chief statistician at the International Copper Study Group in Lisbon, said in an interview. Last year, China's demand rose 9.6 percent while U.S. demand fell 2.9 percent, according to the group. U.S. Northeast ``We are shipping copper from New Orleans to the northeast part of the U.S. because the whole northeast is without copper,'' said Mario Casiano, president of metals warehouse company Pacorini USA in New Orleans. ``Demand in the U.S. seems to be quite good.'' Supplies of copper in global warehouses approved by the London Metal Exchange have dropped every day since mid-December, declining another 4,900 tons to 165,300 metric tons, the exchange's daily report showed. Stockpiles have dropped 62 percent this year to the lowest since July 1997 when supplies were 128,250 tons. The three New Orleans warehouses owned by Trieste, Italy- based Pacorini Group ran out of copper at the end of February, forcing the company to find metal in other warehouses in New Orleans and Baltimore to service customers, Casiano said. ``I've seen a few inquiries coming to check freight for metal coming from Chile to the states,'' he said. ``I would not be surprised in the next two or three months to see some inventory coming back to the U.S.'' About 15,000 tons to 20,000 tons a month of copper is being shipped instead to Europe, China and the Middle East, he said. China's copper demand is slowing, largely because consumers can't get the metal fast enough , Casiano said. ``The railroads don't work,'' he said. ``All the Chinese ports are clogged up. A lot of inventory is sitting at the ports..'' On the London Metal Exchange, copper for delivery in three months rose $36 to $2,858 a metric ton ($1.296 a pound).