Metal Information Center

Grupo Mexico’s shipments to come up short into Aug.: copper supply cloud has little price impact

November 5, 2007 – 5:23 am

EW YORK — Supply disruptions at Grupo Mexico SA de CV and uncertainty over production at Asarco LLC’s Hayden smelter in Arizona following a partial roof collapse over the weekend have had little effect on copper prices, traders said.

With the strike at Grupo Mexico’s La Caridad Mine now nearly three months old, the prolonged supply disruption has already been built into the price, one New York-based trader said.

“The market has already factored this into the price and I don’t see this situation having too much effect,” he said. “Asarco isn’t really a concern and it should be back up and running in about a month.” But if the Grupo Mexico strike ends and production resumes soon afterwards, then prices could soften, he added

Copper on the London Metal Exchange finished the final kerb session on Tuesday at $6,799.50/$6,800 per tonne, up marginally from the previous day’s close at $6,740 per tonne. July copper on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange was trading at $3.1850 per pound, up slightly from its settlement price of $3.1715 per pound.