Industrial metals plunge over new COVID-19 variant concerns

PRICES OF COPPER, AL UMINIUM AND OTH ER INDUSTRIAL MET ALS suffered a decline following reports and worries over a new COVID variant detected in South Africa,Botswana and Hong Kong.

Market dealers have expressed worries the situation would hurt the demand for the metals and further crunch prices as governments in the European Union,Britain,Singapore,U.S, and India tightened border controls.

Aluminium was the worst hardest hit as its three-month price on the London Metal Exchange (LME) tumbled 3.8 per cent at $2,615 per tonne, representing a drop of over $100 from its close of $2,717.50 per tonne the previous day.

Benchmark copper shed 3.6 per cent to close at $9,465 per tonne, registering its second weekly decline, while the most-traded January copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE) was down 1.5 per cent at 70,850 yuan ($11,085.56) a tonne.

Amelia Fu, head of commodity market Strategy at Bank of China International, remarked that the market is in risk-off mode due to the newly detected variant of coronavirus.

Fu, however, noted that copper is still very tight, due to low stocks on LME, adding that supply has not completely recovered and so prices could hold up fairly well even if economic growth slows.

For other base metals, zinc lost 3.1 per cent at $3,197 per tonne, lead dropped 0.4 per cent at $2,261a tonne, tin eased 0.5 per cent to $38,600 per tonne, while nickel was down 3.7 per cent at $19,895 per tonne.