By Tatyana Shumsky
NEW YORK--Copper prices rose to a two-week high as planned
strikes at two key copper mines, in Indonesia and Peru, stoked
traders' worries about supply.
The most actively traded contract, for December delivery, was
recently up 1.80 cents, or 0.6%, at $3.0820 a pound on the Comex
division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
About 10,000 workers at Freeport-McMoRan Inc.'s Grasberg copper
and gold mine in Indonesia will begin a month-long strike next week
to protest unsafe working conditions, union officials said Monday.
Grasberg is the world's third-largest open-pit copper mine and last
year produced 928 million pounds of copper.
"The threat of that much copper out of the market is giving
prices a boost," said Bob Haberkorn, a senior commodities broker
with RJO Futures in Chicago.
Meanwhile, workers at Peru's largest copper mine, Antamina, are
due to begin a strike on Nov. 10, as part of a push for higher
wages.
Combined, the two strikes could remove as much as 70,000 metric
tons of monthly copper supply from the market, traders at RBC
Capital Markets said in a note to clients. This is about 5% of
monthly global supply.
Copper futures rose to $3.0930 a pound, the highest level since
Oct. 14, in response to the news.
Some investors also remain optimistic that authorities in
Beijing will announce further stimulus measures in the coming
weeks, Mr. Haberkorn said. China is the world's largest copper
consumer, accounting for about 40% of global demand, and recent
weakness in the country's economic reading has already led to
targeted stimulus efforts from the government.
Write to Tatyana Shumsky at tatyana.shumsky@wsj.com