Commodities
Home›Commodities›Energy›Copper rises near record as Grasberg smelter outage ti…
Copper rises near record as Grasberg smelter outage tightens supply
Grasberg-linked processing is expected to be shut for assessment and repair, while Comex premiums and falling LME warehouse stocks point to physical scarcity.
Copper climbed back to within half a cent of its record high on Tuesday as an outage at a key smelter tied to Indonesia’s Grasberg mine compounded a supply squeeze that has kept London benchmark copper above $14,000 a tonne for repeated sessions, Mining.com reported. On the Comex, copper for September delivery touched $6.7005 a pound, nearly matching the $6.7045 record set on August 5, before easing to $6.6360, up 0.3% on the day. The December contract traded as high as $6.7980, and delivery in the second half of 2027 moved above $7 a pound, while three-month copper on the LME was little changed at $14,195.50 a tonne. The physical market signals remained tight, with cash metal settling $138 above the three-month contract on Monday, the widest near-term premium since October. LME warehouse stocks fell another 4,675 tonnes on Monday to 218,300 tonnes. Buyers of copper from the Gresik smelter in Indonesia were told the plant will be shut for assessment and repair over the coming weeks after a boiler leak on August 8. Aluminum also surged, reaching a seven-week high after Norsk Hydro said its Alunorte refinery cut output to half of capacity in Brazil due to disruptions to natural gas availability. Copper and aluminum moves came alongside broader tightness in aluminum supply flows, with the Middle East accounting for roughly a tenth of global output as inventories drained and LME stocks hit about 255,000 tonnes, the lowest since November 1990.
Latest closeCopper $6.636 ▲1.0%|Nat gas $2.778 ▲4.4%