Copper prices in London softened on Monday, weighed down by last week's buildup in warehouse stocks that eased supply worries and on concerns about high energy prices.
Benchmark three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was down 0.37% at $14,269.5 a metric ton by 0700 GMT. The most-traded copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange rose 0.65% to 108,830 yuan ($16,315.85) a ton.
Copper stocks in LME-registered warehouses surged last week to their highest levels since July, after big deposits mostly into the exchange's North America warehouses.
Expectations of a potential tariff on imports of refined copper into the US have pulled the metal into the country, thinning stocks elsewhere and pushing the metal on the LME to a record high of $14,875 a ton on September 11.
Macro fears and expectations of a shift in the draw of metal into the US are contributing to a perceived bearish backdrop in copper, Alastair Munro, senior metals strategist at Marex, said in a note.
Stockmarket jitters around the AI boom as well as elevated oil prices are also weighing on growth-dependent copper, which is used in electrification, construction and consumer goods.
Providing some support, the Yangshan copper premium , a gauge of China's appetite for imported copper, was at $168 a ton on Friday, its highest since 2014. That is boosted by thin stocks in the world's biggest consumer, where some smelters are in maintenance, and where stocks in SHFE-monitored warehouses fell more than a quarter to 54,356 tons last week.
The global refined copper market switched to a surplus in August, according to data from the International Copper Study Group released on Saturday.
Among LME metals, aluminium dipped 0.26%, zinc added 0.44%, lead dipped 0.18%, nickel lost 1.15% and tin gained 0.56%.
On the SHFE, aluminium gained 1%, zinc gained 1.36%, lead was little changed, down only 0.03%, nickel dropped 2.11% and tin rose 1.71%.
($1 = 6.6702 Chinese yuan renminbi)
