LONDON: Copper rose more than 2 percent, reflecting strength across base metals following upbeat jobs data from the United States and the return of Chinese buyers after a two-day break.
A one percent drop in copper prices since China, the world's biggest consumer of industrial metals, closed for its latest holiday tempted buyers.
"Prices got a boost with the publication of the latest ADP (jobs) numbers," Commerzbank analyst Carsten Menke said. "It seems to have been enough to push the optimism among market participants higher."
Prices came under pressure last week on indications that a number of production outages that had driven prices sharply higher in February were coming to an end.
A jump in oil prices to their highest in a month also boosted a broader appetite for commodities, analysts said.
LME COPPER: Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was up 2.6 percent at $5,927.50 a tonne at 1421 GMT. A move back through resistance at the 100-day moving average at $5,790 improved its technical picture, traders said.
US DATA: US stocks rose after data from payrolls processor ADP showed private employers added 263,000 jobs in March, more than the number they hired in February and well above economists' expectations.
MARKETS: Wider markets are treading water ahead of the release of minutes later on Wednesday of the Federal Reserve's meeting, and a potentially tense meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping this week.
CHINA-US MEET: Although worried about the prospect of a trade war, American businesses operating in China nonetheless want Trump to wring concessions on market access from China's leader Xi Jingping when the two meet.
NICKEL, ZINC: LME nickel was up 2.9 percent at $10,265 a tonne, driven higher by gains in the steel sector after a cyclone in Australia damaged transport routes for coking coal. Zinc was at $2,796 a tonne, up 2.2 percent.
ZINC SPREAD: The discount of LME cash zinc to the three-month contract moved to $27.25 a tonne, its widest since October 2015, indicating adequate supply of refined metal in the market.
FREEPORT: Indonesia's Secretary General for the Energy Ministry, Teguh Pamuji, said on Tuesday that Freeport McMoRan would receive a temporary "special mining permit" to allow its operations to continue and exports to resume while discussions on longer-term issues continued.
PERU: Peru will likely gradually increase its copper production to 3.1 million tonnes in 2021 from an annual 2.35 million tonnes expected for both this year and next, the country's energy and mines minister told the CRU World Copper Conference in Chile.
CESCO: Southern Copper should share more of its profits with workers in Peru to avoid an indefinite strike at its Toquepala and Cuajone mines starting on April 10, a union leader said on Tuesday.
COLLAHUASI: The Collahuasi copper mine in Chile, a joint venture between Anglo American and Glencore, expects 2017 output to beat last year's, and could ramp up production that was frozen in 2015 if the price of copper keeps rising, the mine's chief executive told Reuters.
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