Nov. 22 （Bloomberg） -- Copper fell in New York and London as some striking workers at the world's fourth-biggest mine accepted a wage offer and imports of the metal into China, the largest consumer, slid to a one-year low.
At least 120 workers at Anglo American Plc and Xstrata Plc's Collahuasi venture accepted a pay proposal to end a strike, company spokeswoman Bernardita Fernandez said today by phone. Copper traded on the Comex in New York retreated for a second week in a row last week on concern that demand might weaken as China moves to control inflation.
"Reports of a partial acceptance of the wage proposal at the Collahausi mine in Chile will begin to test the resolve of the bulls who took heart from the absence of an interest-rate hike over the weekend in China to go along with the 50-point increase in bank deposits announced on Friday," Alex Heath, head of industrial-metals trading at Royal Bank of Canada Europe Ltd. in London, said in a report today.
Copper for delivery in March dropped 3.25 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $3.81 pound at 8:37 a.m. on the Comex. Copper for delivery in three months slid 0.4 percent to $8,370 a metric ton on the London Metal Exchange. All of the six main metals traded on the LME retreated except aluminum.
Copper earlier gained as much as 0.9 percent on the Comex and 1.3 percent on the LME as the dollar weakened, making metals priced in the currency cheaper in terms of other monies. The euro had risen after Ireland sought international aid on optimism a deal to rescue the country's banks may curb a spread of the European sovereign-debt crisis.
More Declines?
"The market is a bit confused after last week," William Adams, an analyst at Basemetals.com in London, said by phone. "It's likely to stay choppy. Last week we saw quite an aggressive pullback across the metals, which has been overdone in the short term, and we've just seen a bit of bargain-hunting, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see metals head lower again."
About 8 percent of Collahuasi's workers accepted the pay offer. At least half of the 1,551 unionized workers must do so by Nov. 23 to end the strike, now in its 18th day. The Chilean mine produced 535,000 tons of copper last year, or 3.5 percent of global output, according to Standard Bank Plc.
Refined-copper imports by China tumbled in October as high international prices and ample domestic supplies cut the demand for overseas shipments. Shipments dropped 30 percent to 169,897 tons from 241,711 tons in September, according to Bloomberg News calculations based on data from the General Administration of Customs.
Bank Reserves
Copper fell last week as China last week ordered banks to set aside larger reserves for the second time in two weeks, stoking concern that demand might weaken. Still, concern that tightening measures to cool inflation in China may sap demand for commodities is exaggerated, JPMorgan Chase & Co. said in a research note sent by e-mail today.
Hedge-fund managers and other large speculators decreased their net-long position in New York copper futures in the week ended Nov. 16, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Nov. 19. Net-long positions, or bets on higher prices, fell by 4,129 contracts, or 14 percent, from a week earlier.
Orders to draw copper from LME stockpiles, or canceled warrants, dropped 6.6 percent to 31,750 tons today, daily exchange figures showed. LME copper inventories slipped 0.2 percent to 359,000 tons.
Tin for three-month delivery on the LME lost 0.8 percent to $24,800 a ton. The metal has jumped 46 percent this year, leading advances on the exchange, after production was disrupted in Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Aluminum rose 1.3 percent to $2,288.25 a ton and nickel fell 0.7 percent to $21,701 a ton. Lead dropped 1.8 percent to $2,235 a ton and zinc slid 1 percent to $2,138.25 a ton.
--With assistance from Matt Craze in Santiago. Editors: Dan Weeks, John Deane.
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