Commodity Online
NEW DELHI: Metals showed various hues in February with copper prices witnessing some gains and some other base metals moving up a bit.
February has been generally a positive month for base metals, which were down in dumps for the past few months.
In February some gain in prices of copper and tin were witnessed while nickel and aluminium showed a slump.
Zinc and lead remained almost range-bound in February.
Copper prices climbed up because of the little surge in demand in India. Copper gained $150 to $3,350 per tonne in the world market during the past two weeks.
Even as there has been a marginal improvement in copper offtake by domestic consumers of India, it could not make a significant impact on world inventory, which is being right now hovering at 516,675 tonnes on the London Metal Exchange, up by over 2,000 tonnes in the last couple of days.
With nickel inventory increasing 864 tonnes to 88,278 tonnes by the weak-end, the metal price during the period fell from $11,350 to $10,130 tonnes.
Experts said nickel price would soon start rallying once the market sentiment gets harder on the news of suspension of the metal production by one of the largest nickel producing companies in the world, Berong Nickel Corporation. At $10,130 a tonne, nickel, a key ingredient in making stainless steel, has touched a record low compared to its all-time high price of $15,800 a tonne in March.
Zinc and lead have remained range-bound in the first fortnight of February, which respectively moved between $1,100 and $1,170 and $1,125 and $1,160 per tonne on LME.
