Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Copper climbs as BHP Billiton says strike to hit production at world’s largest mine

Copper prices climbed over 1 percent on Wednesday morning in Asia after global miner BHP Billiton said it planned to halt production at the Escondida mine in Chile due to a workers strike.

According to Reuters, production will stop at the world largest copper mine during a strike schedule to being on Thursday. The mine produced 6 percent of the world's copper in 2015.

Benchmark three-month copper futures on the London Metal Exchange rose as much as 1.5 percent to $5,894.5 per metric ton and were trading around $5,872.5 at 2.15pm HK/SIN time. They are still off a two-month top of $6,007 a tonne reached on Feb. 1.

David Lennox, resources analyst at Fat Prophets, said prices of commodities now are prone to short-term shocks such as strikes as capital expenditure has been slashed following a sustained and broad-based slump across the complex since the summer of 2014.

"Projects that were supposed to come on-stream haven't been. That does mean that supply is getting a bit tighter and demand is increasing closer to those supply levels," Lennox told CNBC's "Capital Connection".

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