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Copper steady ahead of U.S. non-farm payroll data

Copper was little changed on Friday ahead of jobs data from the United States, amid concerns of supply disruption in top producer Chile and expectations that China will export to trim high stockpiles at home.

Benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange was traded at $8,235 a tonne in official rings, compared with the $8,229 a tonne at the close on Thursday.

Investors were cautious ahead of non-farm pay rolls data from the U.S. later on Friday, which should offer more hints on the state of the labour market in the world’s largest economy.

The market has received mixed signals so far this week: while the U.S. services employment declined in April to its lowest level since December another set of numbers pointed to the biggest weekly fall in jobless claims since May 2011.

“The non-farm pay roll data is the biggest factor going forward but people are also looking at copper supply disruptions at Escondida (Chile) and are trying to understand how much copper cathodes China will export,” said Credit Suisse analyst Ivan Szpakowski.

Market players expected large Chinese copper smelters and trading firms to export refined copper cathodes to LME-registered warehouses over the next two months to help ease tight global supplies and trim near-record stockpiles at home.

The move could see thousands of tonnes of refined copper finding their way back to LME warehouses, boosting inventories and slashing steep premiums of spot prices over those for later deliveries.

Investors were balancing this with supply tightness worries as Chile was once again struggling with lower than expected copper production and labour action heightening supply tightness risks.

A protest took place this week at Chile’s giant Escondida copper mine, the world’s largest, as a group of contract workers blocked some roads to the deposit in a dispute over bonuses.

Although majority owner BHP Billiton said on Thursday output had not been affected, worries lingered.

“People are skeptical of miners’ comments as producers always tend to underestimate production disruption. They said the same last year and then they actually were impacted,” Szpakowski said.

Supply response

Also highlighting supply scarcity, first-quarter copper production at Chilean miner Antofagasta fell 13 percent on the previous three months amid rising development costs, the London-listed firm said.

“With real demand in China now starting to increase and global industrial output trending higher, the ability of supply to respond is likely to drive relative performance in H2,” Macquarie said in a research note.

Inventories of copper in warehouses monitored by the Shanghai Futures Exchange fell 4.0 percent from last Friday to their lowest since February, data showed. Copper stocks in LME-monitored warehouses also fell, to their lowest since October 2008.

Aluminium traded at $2,088 a tonne in rings from $2,089.50 and nickel, untraded in rings was bid at $17,425 from $17,275.

Both were supported by news that Indonesia will impose a new 20 percent export tax on 14 mineral ore exports including copper, gold and nickel from Sunday and will prohibit the shipment of raw minerals unless miners submit plans to build smelters.

This is likely to hit exports of nickel and bauxite to China, an industry source said, highlighting concerns over the impact of the policy changes by Southeast Asia’s biggest economy.

Zinc, used in galvanizing, was untraded in rings but was bid at $1,998.50 from $1,984 Thursday close; battery material lead traded at $2,090 from $2,092.