Copper edges up as unrest in top producer Chile intensifies

PHOTO

SINGAPORE - Copper prices rose on Tuesday, after protests in top copper producer Chile intensified, raising concerns about supply shortages.

Thousands of Chileans on Monday protested in Santiago against high living costs, prompting President Sebastian Pinera to declare the country was "at war" with vandals.

The union of workers at BHP's Escondida, the world's largest copper mine, will hold a day-long strike on Tuesday in a show of solidarity with protests in Chile.

Three-month copper on the London Metal (LME) rose 0.2% to $5,841.50 a tonne by 0136 GMT, while the most-traded copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE) advanced 0.2% to 47,160 yuan ($6,667.14) a tonne.

FUNDAMENTALS

PRICES: LME aluminium dipped 0.1%, nickel was down 0.3%, zinc fell 0.2%, while lead declined 0.4%. ShFE aluminium fell 0.4%, nickel lost 1.3% while zinc was down 0.3%.

TRADE DEAL: U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said efforts to end a U.S. trade war with China were going well. "They sort of have to make a deal ... because their supply chain is going down the tubes," Trump said.

LITHIUM: Rio Tinto Plc is studying ways to extract lithium from waste rock at a mine it controls in California, making it the latest company trying to produce the battery metal in the United States for the electric vehicle market.

ALUMINIUM: Global primary aluminium output fell to 5.163 million tonnes in September from revised 5.329 million tonnes in August, data from the International Aluminium Institute (IAI) showed on Monday.

SHFE: The chief executive of the Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE), home to China's flagship iron ore futures contract, is taking over as general manager of the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE), the Shanghai bourse on Monday.

MARKETS NEWS

Asian share markets edged ahead amid cheery chatter about the chance of a Sino-U.S. trade deal, while investors were sanguine yet another vote on Brexit would still avert a hard exit.

DATA/EVENTS (GMT)

1000 UK CBI Trends - Orders Oct

1200 Brazil IPCA-15 Mid-Month CPI Oct

1400 US Existing Home Sales Sept

PRICES

Three month LME copper

Most active ShFE copper

Three month LME aluminium

Most active ShFE aluminium

Three month LME zinc

Most active ShFE zinc

Three month LME lead