By MELANIE BURTON –
THE prices of copper in London slipped yesterday, as worries about global oversupply eclipsed support from a softer dollar and polls suggesting that Britain will remain in the European Union.
The prices for three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange fell by 0.6 per cent to $4,610.50 a tonne, paring a two-per cent gain during the previous session.
Shanghai Futures Exchange copper rose by 0.5 per cent to 35,650 yuan ($5,423) a tonne.
That eroded demand for the dollar as a safe haven currency and metals were supported on the softer dollar as they become cheaper for other currency holders.
Copper stocks held in London Metal Exchange warehouses in Asia are set to jump by around 50 per cent in the next month, as the metal is shifted out or diverted away from top consumer China, industry sources said last week.
China is expected to have exported out an “enormous” amount of copper in May, due to ample stockpiles in local inventories, a Singapore-based trader said.
Government data is due out later in the session.
China’s copper production may rise yet further as fees that miners pay smelters to process spot metal continue to climb, said Hong Kong-based broker Argonaut Securities in a note.
Investors remain wary ahead of Thursday’s Brexit vote, as well as Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen’s two-day testimony before Congress which starts later on Tuesday, in which she might offer clues on the
timing of the central bank’s next interest rate increase.
In less than six months of 2016, China’s appetite for overseas acquisitions has already outgrown last year’s record, as deal-hungry mainland buyers chase global assets such as real estate, chemicals and
high-end technology.  – Reuters