LONDON: Copper fell to its lowest in more than five weeks on Thursday as further inflows into London Metal Exchange warehouses eased some supply fears, even though expectations of regional supply bottlenecks persisted outside the US.
Benchmark three-month copper on the LME was down 1.8 percent at USD14,085 a metric ton in official open outcry activity. It hit a session low of USD14,031, its weakest since September 15.
Copper stocks in LME warehouses climbed for a fourth day after 29,050 tons of inflows on Wednesday, chiefly in the US storage hub of New Orleans.
Total LME copper stocks now stand at 272,950 tons, the highest since July 24, after earlier flows into New Orleans and Baltimore this week. Around 62 percent of all LME copper inventories are currently in the US.
Alastair Munro, senior metals strategist at broker Marex, said the recent build in LME copper stocks was the result of the COMEX premium shrinking as contract delivery dates draw closer.
Traders have been shipping copper to the US COMEX exchange for much of this year, attempting to head off potential import tariffs on the metal, pushing COMEX prices higher than LME prices.
However, the front of the curve now shows COMEX trading at a discount to the LME, encouraging flows on to the LME instead. The backwardation on the LME - a market structure where prices for prompt delivery are higher than those further forward - has also incentivised deliveries.
The cash LME copper contract was last trading at a USD93.50 a ton premium to the three-month forward. In top metals consumer China, the Yangshan copper premium - a gauge of appetite for imported copper - rose to USD148 a ton on Wednesday, its highest since October 2022. Elsewhere, sell-off in equity marketson doubts over the AI outlook weighed on the industrial metals complex.
Aluminium shed 1.1percent to USD3,007.50 a ton, zinc lost 1.7 percent to USD3,690, lead dipped 0.8 percent to USD1,895, nickel slid 0.7 percent to USD16,125 and tin dropped 2.2 percent to USD50,100.
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