{"id":1202319,"date":"2020-08-18T16:10:23","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T21:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1033063"},"modified":"2020-08-19T13:50:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T18:50:00","slug":"copper-price-jumps-to-2-year-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1202319","title":{"rendered":"Copper surges above $3 for the first time since June 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

Copper rose above $3 a pound for the first time in more than two years on Wednesday, boosted by a weaker dollar, low stocks and falling output.<\/p>\n

Most actively traded copper futures for delivery in September added 1.5%, to $3.0190 a pound, surpassing the $3 level of June 2018.<\/p>\n

Copper is now up about 8% for the year and 25% in the past three months.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s refined copper output in July fell 5.3% from the previous month to 814,000 tonnes, according to official data.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar hovered around a 27-month low on uncertainties about an economic recovery and the U.S. fiscal stimulus package.<\/p>\n

A weaker U.S. dollar makes LME metals priced in the greenback cheaper for holders of other currencies.<\/p>\n

Rio Tinto announced on Wednesday that has cut its refined copper outlook for the year<\/a> to 135,000-175,000 tonnes from 165,000-205,000 tonnes.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have the perfect cocktail of price supporting factors with pick up in demand, supply issues, and expectations for a weaker dollar,\u201d Saxo Bank analyst Ole Hansen told Reuters.<\/p>\n

Chinese stimulus<\/h2>\n

Copper prices have also been lifted by top consumer China, where unprecedented stimulus measures have increased demand for the metal widely used construction, transportation, industry and electrical grids. <\/p>\n

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, Beijing has issued 4.75 trillion yuan ($683 billion) in local and national debt with a focus on encouraging infrastructure projects, according to China Dialogue<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As of the end of June, 63% of funds from local government special bonds had gone to infrastructure investments, primarily in transportation, civic infrastructure and industrial parks, according to figures from GF Securities. <\/p>\n

China\u2019s finance ministry has said that 700 billion of the 1 trillion yuan in national special bonds can be used as capital for infrastructure construction (the remainder is to be used for general pandemic-related spending). <\/p>\n

\"Copper<\/figure>\n

Soaring imports<\/h2>\n

Customs data released last week showed China\u2019s unwrought copper imports (anodes and cathodes) in July rose a stunning 81% from the same month last year to 762,211 tonnes and a full 16% above the previous monthly record set in June.<\/p>\n

For the first seven months of 2020, imports are running at 21.7 million tonnes annualized, compared to 2019\u2019s record-breaking tally of 22 million tonnes.  <\/p>\n

Over the first seven months of the year, imports totalled 3.6m tonnes, on track to easily beat 2018\u2019s annual record of 5.3m tonnes. <\/p>\n

July imports of copper concentrate rose by more than 12% from June\u2019s 9-month low to 1.795m tonnes,  but still down 13.5% from July last year, due to disruptions at mines in Peru, China\u2019s top supplier.<\/p>\n

(With files from Reuters)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Copper price jumps 3% to highest since July 2018 as massive Chinese stimulus suck in metal and LME inventories drop to 13-year low.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2849,949,369],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202319"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1202319"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1202815,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202319\/revisions\/1202815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1202319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1202319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1202319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}