Market Ructions: China stimulus kicks copper back into gear
Copper finished strongly closing at US$4.47/lb up 3.7% for the week (figure 1) as China moved to ease lockdown restrictions and stimulate the economy.
In other copper news, China’s MMG also announced last week it had stood down 3,000 workers at the Las Bambas copper mine in Chile with protests now into their second month.
Mining Journal reported (3 June 2022) that around 375,000 local workers are impacted by the suspension of operations. The three-month forward market is now strongly in contango, a bullish short-to-medium sign for the red metal.
