Resilient LME calms jittery Shanghai copper

Shanghai copper eased on Tuesday, dented by declining Chinese equities, but London futures' resilience in the face of selling pressure helped preserve fragile sentiment. The most-active September copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange was down 410 yuan or 0.65 percent at 62,640 yuan ($8,222) at the close.
China's main stock index earlier fell more than 3 percent earlier, the third fall of such magnitude in as many sessions, hit by worries the government will launch additional measures to cool down the economy. "Copper is being heavily affected by the stock market," Shen Haihua, deputy general manager of Maike Futures, said.
He said consumption of copper in China had slowed in the second quarter. "Growth of copper consumption is likely to rise 12 to 15 percent in the second quarter versus a 18 percent rise in the first quarter," he said. Copper for delivery in three months on the London Metal Exchange was $80 lower at $7,400 at 0715 GMT. On Monday, prices dropped to $7,240, the lowest since June 14, before recovering at the close as strikes got under way in South America.
"Copper, initially unreactive to news of strike action at Southern Copper's Peruvian operations, belatedly picked up in the afternoon on the long anticipated news that Codelco's subcontractors had gone on strike en-masse," Standard Bank, London, said in a note.
Workers blocked roads and set fire to buses close to mines owned by Chilean copper miner Codelco, as subcontractors staged protests that Codelco said had only a limited impact on production. Elsewhere in South America, Southern Copper Corp described a strike at its operations in Peru as "partial."
"There are on average around 30 to 35 percent of workers on the job," Alberto Giles, the director of human resources at Southern Copper, told Reuters by telephone, adding it was too early to determine the effect on output. A strike at Xstrata PLC's 370,000 tonne-per-year CCR refinery in Montreal, that has cut production to around one-third of capacity, is entering its second week.