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Copper, nickel recover sheen

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Bloomberg Mumbai
Last Updated : Feb 05 2013 | 12:35 AM IST
Copper and nickel snapped two days of declines in London as global stock markets rebounded, raising expectations that industrial metals demand will keep growing.
 
Shares in Asia gained the most in more than three months and European stocks rose for the first time in six days. Zug, Switzerland-based Xstrata, the world's fourth-largest copper and nickel producer, said metal prices will stay above historical averages this year.
 
Growth in China and India "is an ongoing event which will create sustained demand,'' Xstrata Chief Executive Officer Mick Davis said today in a telephone interview.
 
Copper for delivery in three months on the London Metal Exchange gained $95, or 1.6 per cent, to $5,985 a tonne as of 11:57 am. The metal lost 4.5 per cent last week.
 
Stockpiles of copper monitored by the LME fell 1,125 tonne, or 0.5 per cent, to 206,050 tonne, the exchange said today in a daily report. Inventories have increased 13 per cent this year.
 
Nickel advanced $700 to $40,000 a tonne. It slipped 5.3 per cent in March 2 through March 5.
 
Lead increased $55, or 3 per cent, to $1,870 a tonne after Xstrata said it's maintaining "force majeure'' at a UK plant that may exacerbate a shortage of the metal used in car batteries. The declaration last month alerted customers that shipments from the Northfleet smelter may be curbed because of disruptions to ore supplies from the Mount Isa mine in Australia.
 
Lead demand beat production by 88,000 tonne during 2006, according to the World Bureau of Metal Statistics. Prices of lead have jumped 55 per cent in the past year. It traded at a record $1,975.14 on March 2.
 
Also on the LME, zinc gained $80 to $3,330 a tonne, aluminium rose $34 to $2,712 and tin increased $300 to $13,400.

 
 

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First Published: Mar 07 2007 | 12:00 AM IST

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