(Updates prices, add analyst comment)
By Polina Devitt
LONDON, March 8 (Reuters) - Copper prices rose in London
on Wednesday after two days of decline amid signs of limited
supply and weaker dollar, making the metal more attractive for
buyers with other currencies.
The dollar dipped modestly from three-month highs
reached earlier in the day as investors adjusted for the
prospect of higher rates for longer after Federal Reserve
Chairman Jerome Powell's comments over Tuesday and Wednesday.
Benchmark copper on the London Metal Exchange (LME)
was up 1.6% at $8,903.0 a tonne by 1640 GMT after losing 2.4% in
the first two days of the week.
"The copper market is still quite tight on the supply side,"
said Dan Smith, head of research at Amalgamated Metal Trading.
"Things have been improving in terms of supply from Peru, but
the copper concentrate market is still tight."
Mines in Peru, the world's second largest copper producer,
are starting to transport their copper concentrate to ports for
export after three months of protests that have snarled
shipments, its official told Reuters earlier this week.
Some local communities, however, threatened to start new
blockades of the crucial highway used by copper producers in
Peru this week.
In another copper producing country, Panama, the government
and Canada's First Quantum Minerals agreed on a draft of
contract to operate a key mine. The draft is subject to a 30-day
public consultation, but the mine is expected to resume ore
processing over the next several days.
LME three-month aluminium rose by 0.2% to $2,354 a
tonne. "Aluminium smelters in [China's southwestern province of]
Yunnan are said to have completed necessary production cuts, and
we will start to pay close attention to production in the region
in the coming weeks," Sucden Financial wrote in an note about
aluminium.
Zinc added 1.0% to $2,982 and lead was up
0.3% to $2,094, while tin fell 2.0% to $23,700 and
nickel lost 1.1% to $23,875.
For the top stories in metals and other news, click or (Reporting by Polina Devitt; additional reporting by Siyi Liu
and Dominique Patton; editing by Jason Neely and Krishna Chandra
Eluri)
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