Rise of China’s Xinjiang as coal hub undercuts climate goals
Output has surged 22% this year, the fastest growth of any region in China.
Declining properties values in China are hammering copper. The release on Tuesday of Chinese government data showed the prices of new homes fell in 64 of 70 cities in January, according to a report in Bloomberg.
Today’s price saw the biggest drop since Feb. 10, with copper futures for May delivery falling 1 percent to $2.85 a pound on the Comex in New York.
Copper, lead, aluminum, tin and nickel also fell on the LME, with nickel dropping for a seventh straight session in the worst slump since November 2013.
“More and more reports are indicating that the slowdown is not getting any better,” Mike Dragosits, a senior commodity strategist at TD Securities in Toronto, told the news outlet. “Prices will probably remain under pressure until we see China taking some aggressive steps to boost growth.”
2015 is turning out to be an ugly year for the red metal, having declined 8.7 percent so far on concerns of an oversupplied market and ebbing demand for key consumption markets China and Europe.
