Contracts priced on the London Metal Exchange regained upward momentum Monday, after some profit-taking at the end of last week. Three-months copper closed the session $55 firmer at $6,748/mt. Still, Saxo Bank's head of commodities strategy, Ole Hansen, aired some concerns. "Another commodity at risk of a correction is copper. After a 26% rally from the May low, and a four-fold increase in the net long, the price has increasingly become detached from current fundamentals," Hansen said. Commenting on China's recent August trade data, ANZ said of the metal, "While August volumes were unchanged from July at 390,000 mt, they were up 11.4% on year ... Overall the trade data continue a run of better-than-expected data, which should be taken positively by the market." Three-months aluminium closed $23 higher at $2,122/mt. Russian aluminum producer Rusal said Monday it has completed the upgrade works of the Befesa 2-line for alloy ingots at the Irkutsk smelter, and expects work on the other Befesa-1 line to be completed in 2018. Rusal has invested a total of $7.6 million in the upgrade works, the company said. The upgrade involved installing a new casting wheel, a metal distribution system, changing the ingot mold design for ingots production and improving the water cooling system with automatic water flow adjustment and an ingot extraction/transportation unit. Zinc closed the session $52 firmer at $3,083/mt, lead gained $12 at $2,277/mt, tin climbed $225 at $20,750/mt while nickel was up $170 at $11,750/mt. Marex Spectron said, "In contrast to China's weak export data, which appeared to trigger Friday's sell off, China Producer Price Inflation was surprisingly strong at 6.3% in August from 5.5% in July, especially highlighting China's drive to shutter production as well as resilient demand." Molybdenum, cobalt and both of the aluminium alloy contracts closed the session untraded, basis three-months. North American grade alloy was last bid at $1,995/mt with standard grade at $1,755/mt.
