Reuters Africa reports that China has ordered local governments to cut a total 2.04 million tonnes of aluminium, copper, lead and zinc smelting capacity in 2011.
The world's largest copper producer is shut down in a 24-hour strike that has the potential to cause severe losses for Chile's state mining company.
Codelco says it could lose $41 million from today's strike
Copper fell on Monday as concerns over Italy's sovereign debt curtailed appetite for risky assets, but a series of strikes in producer countries highlighted supply constraints and lent support to prices.
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange traded at $9, 581 a tonne in official rings , down from the $9,661 close on Friday.
The world's largest copper producer, Codelco, is facing a 24-hour strike on Monday in opposition to a plan that workers say would move Chile's state-owned mining corporation toward privatization.
The Federation of Copper Workers , which represents 15,000 of the company's 20,000 employees, called for the strike, which will be the company's first in 18 years.
Europe's largest copper producer Aurubis sees a trend for rising copper prices thanks to higher demand for more electronics goods, its chief executive told a German paper.
"Even if there may be short-terms price swings in either direction... demand for copper is rising with increasing prosperity in countries such as China," Bernd Drouven told Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
A strike paralyzing production at Freeport Indonesia's Grasberg mine, one of the world's largest sources of copper and gold, will extend into a second week after talks broke down between the company and workers, a union official said on Friday.
The union, which represents 8,000 workers who have been on strike since Monday, asked U.S.-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX.N) to send Chairman James Moffett to the remote Indonesian mine to negotiate.
Copper hit a three-month high on Friday as concerns about demand from top consumer China receded and supply disruptions reinforced expectations of potential shortages this year.
However, traders expected subdued trading ahead of a monthly jobs report from the United States, the world's largest economy, later on Friday.
Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, will seek to sell bonds within 12 months to help finance a record $4 billion investment in its Chilean mines next year, Chief Executive Officer Diego Hernandez said.
The state-owned copper company probably will raise part of the investment in U.S. dollar-denominated bonds as well as using amortization and retention of profits, Hernandez said in an interview in Bloomberg’s Santiago office yesterday.
Unrest and strikes in Indonesia, Chile, Australia and Africa, a shortage of skilled workers in North America and rising labour costs all over the globe are quickly becoming the most serious downsides of a mining boom that started almost a decade ago.
While a historically high overall jobless rate is masking spiking wages in the resources sector in the US, workers in emerging markets are shutting down operations of mining companies deemed not to be sharing record profits fairly.
