HCL hikes prices

Hindustan Copper, a public sector major, raised the provisional prices of its products across the board by 15 per cent following a similar rise witnessed in the benchmark London Metal Exchange (LME) prices. The copper prices have risen 28 per cent during April. The company had last raised the selling prices by 12.57 per cent across all product categories, effective April 1.

With this price revision, the copper rod 8 mm standard is quoted at Rs 3,42,400 a tonne while the non-standard rod is sold at Rs 3,42,000 a tonne. Rods with a thickness of 11-16 mm are quoted at Rs 3,44,100 a tonne. The full and cut cathodes are sold at Rs 3,39,000 and Rs 3,40,500 a tonne respectively.

In another significant move, Hindustan Copper revised the interest for usance of letter of credit (LC) to 11.50 per cent from 11 per cent per annum for the credit period upto 90 days.

The inventory decline in the LME-registered warehouses led to purchases at the high prevalent levels. Copper inventories declined unabated to 168,150 tonne on Monday from 181,075 tonne on April 2.

The supply surplus statistics is significant as the current deposits in the LME-registered warehouses amount to 169,075 tonne, roughly equivalent to less than four days of global consumption. Inventories have significantly fallen from the recent peak of 210,000 tonne.

Though the strike has ended, the copper prices are not likely to offer any respite to the consumers barring some temporary ripples due to China's voracious appetite for metal consumption. The world's largest copper producer and consumer announced that it will meet its 40 per cent consumption requirements this year through imports as against 10 per cent last year. The country needs copper in abundance to meet the rising demand for infrastructure development. China is likely to consume 4.3 million tonne this year to meet the power industry's demand, compared with 3.9 million tonne last year. The country's output of copper fell 2.5 per cent to 220,000 tonne in March and gained 4.2 per cent to 702,000 tonne in the first quarter.

The price of copper in the international market rose for the 7th consecutive week in spite of surplus demand-supply statistics presented by the International Wrought Copper Council (IWCC), a London-based group representing a wide gamut of red metal users. According to IWCC, the surplus of copper may rise to 275,000 tonne this year in comparison with its earlier projection of 115,000 tonne.