Copper price rally comes to crashing halt after Chinese data disappoint

Copper futures trading on the Comex market in New York declined sharply on Friday bringing to a halt  a price rally that saw the bellwether metals come close to hitting three-year highs.

Copper for delivery in December fell more more than 3% from Thursday's closing price to $3.0340 a pound ($6,706 per tonne) in morning trade. On Wednesday copper hit an intra-day high just shy of $3.18 a pound (more than $7,000 a tonne), the highest since mid-September 2014 and year-to-date gains remain above 20%.

Cargoes are down nearly 13% over the first eight months of 2017 

The reversal on Friday came after customs data from China, responsible for nearly half the world's copper consumption, showed import volumes remained flat for the fourth month in a row.

Chinese imports of refined copper totalled 390,000 tonnes in August, levels unchanged since May. While imports were up 11% from August last year, cargoes remain down nearly 13% over the first eight months of 2017 to just over 3m tonnes compared to the same period in 2016.

Shipments of copper concentrate in August were up slightly from July but eased compared to last year coming in at 1.44m tonnes. Year to date Chinese concentrate imports total 11.1m tonnes, a 1.2% faster pace than January–August 2016, despite falling production at the world's number one producer Codelco and supply disruptions at some of the world's biggest mines including BHP's Escondida mine in Chile and at Freeport McMoRan's Grasberg operations in Indonesia.

The post Copper price rally comes to crashing halt after Chinese data disappoint appeared first on MINING.com.

from MINING.com http://ift.tt/2wP6s2N