BEIJING, June 12 (Reuters) - London copper shrugged off
early losses to trade flat on Tuesday after U.S. President
Donald Trump hailed a "very positive" summit with North Korea's
Kim Jong Un, while Shanghai copper prices ended lower for the
first time in eight days.
U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong
Un pledged on Tuesday to work toward complete denuclearisation
of the Korean peninsula while Washington committed to provide
security guarantees for its old enemy. But a joint statement
signed at the end of their historic summit in Singapore gave few
details on how either goal would be achieved.
London Metal Exchange (LME) copper prices had propelled to a
4-1/2-year high last week on fears of a strike at BHP's
Escondida mine in Chile.
In a statement on Monday, BHP said it was ready to discuss
the "different points of interest" and hoped for a "mutually
beneficial agreement" after the mine's union called for a salary
increase of 5 percent and a one-time bonus of $34,000.
Copper investors "remain cautious, with the continued
closure of Vedanta's Tuticorin smelter in India as well as the
potential for strike action at Escondida," ANZ wrote in a note.
FUNDAMENTALS
* SHFE COPPER: The most-traded August copper contract on the
Shanghai Futures Exchange closed down 0.5 percent at
53,970 yuan ($8,432.42) a tonne.
* LME COPPER: Three-month copper on the LME slipped
as much as 0.8 percent to $7,196 a tonne, before clawing its way
back up to $7,252, as of 0728 GMT. It fell for two straight
sessions after hitting a 4-1/2-year high of $7,348 on Thursday.
* IVANHOE: A unit of Chinese state-run conglomerate CITIC
Ltd will buy a near 20 percent stake in Canada's
Ivanhoe Mines for about C$723 million ($555 million),
the companies said on Monday.
* ALUMINIUM: A unit of Beijing's Tsinghua University on
Tuesday said it would buy aluminium smelter Xinjiang Tianshan
for an estimated 23.6 billion yuan ($3.69 billion), in the
second major deal in China's aluminium industry in just over two
weeks. {nL4N1TE219]
* CANADA: The Canadian province of Quebec will offer C$100
million ($77 million) in loans and guarantees on loans to steel
and aluminium companies hit by recent U.S. tariffs, the
province's economy minister said on Monday.
