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Copper was the outperformer of the SHFE base metals in terms of percentage gains. The red metal’s most traded December contract price rose to 47,140 yuan ($6,661) per tonne as at 10.08am Shanghai time, up by 120 yuan per tonne – or 0.3% – from Monday’s close of 47,020 yuan per tonne.
Copper continues to find support from supply-side issues such as force majeure declarations at MMG’s Las Bambas in Peru and Antofagasta’s Antucoya smelter in Chile last week.
More recently, union workers at Escondida, the world’s largest copper mine, have threatened strike action, and have called on miners across Chile to “paralyze” the mining industry, after a state of emergency was declared at the weekend.
Separately, one of the main trade unions at Codelco’s Chuquicamata division in Chile said on Monday that it was open to schedule an assembly to decide whether to support a nation-wide strike.
“Copper prices led the sector higher as unrest in Chile threatened to broaden the strike action already underway at copper mines in the country,” an analyst with ANZ Research said in a morning note.
“The market was already on edge following reports that talks between unions and management at Teck’s Carmen de Andacollo and Antofagasta’s Antucoya copper mines remain on hold,” the analyst added.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, nickel’s recent run of weakness continued this morning, with the alloying metal leading the broad-based decline experienced across most of the SHFE base metals.
The most-traded December nickel contract fell to 125,830 yuan per tonne as at 10.08am Shanghai time, down by 560 yuan per tonne – or 0.4% – from Monday’s close of 126,390 yuan per tonne.
Nickel continues to work off excessive bullish froth that had primarily been driven by the Indonesian government bringing forward a ban on nickel ore exports forward by two years, according to Fastmarkets’ analyst Andy Farida.
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