BEIJING, Jan 11 (Reuters) - Nickel prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE) climbed as much as 1 percent to their
highest in two months on Thursday, tracking a rise in London a day earlier, as concerns over low stock levels and production
outages lent support to the market. "Nickel cathode in the warehouses is very tight... so there is some possibility to squeeze [broker'] selling
positions," said Xu Aidong, chief nickel analyst, Antaike. Deliverable ShFE nickel warehouse stocks stood at 48,920 tonnes as of Jan. 5, compared with over 90,000 tonnes a year
ago. Four nickel mines in the Zambales region of the Philippines, a key nickel exporter, remain shut on environmental grounds, an
official said on Thursday, while Japan's Sumitomo Corp has suspended output at a mine in Madagascar following a cyclone. "The four mines in Zambales are still not allowed to resume
production," said Wilfredo Moncano, director of the Philippine Mines and Geosciences Bureau. "No extraction, no new mining
activities. What's only allowed is hauling of ores from their stockpiles." FUNDAMENTALS: * SHFE NICKEL: The most traded Shanghai nickel contract
climbed 0.9 percent at 101,220 yuan ($15,535.26) a tonne at the mid-session interval, having earlier touched 102,380 yuan a tonne, its highest since Nov. 9.
* LME NICKEL: Benchmark nickel on the London Metal Exchange (LME) was down 0.7 percent at $12,840 a tonne, as of 0510 GMT, partly reversing Wednesday's gains, when it touched
$13,200 a tonne, its highest since June 2015. * MADAGASCAR: Sumitomo said on Thursday the company and its partners Sherritt International Corp and Korea Resources
Corp halted output at the Ambatovy nickel mine in Madagascar on Jan. 4, the day before Cyclone Ava hit the area. * COPPER: Three-month copper on the LME was up 0.2
percent at $7,169 a tonne, building on its 0.7 percent gain in the previous session. The most-traded SHFE copper contract
was up 0.4 percent at 55,090 yuan a tonne. * CHINA: Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group, one of China's top copper smelters, will suspend production at its
Jinguan Copper unit for three days from Friday for repairs, a source familiar with the matter said. * PERU: The government of Peruvian President Pedro Pablo
Kuczynski is evaluating a $2.4 billion railway project to transport mineral concentrates from a copper-rich Andean region
to the Pacific coast for export. * ALUMINIUM: The most-traded aluminium contract on the ShFE climbed 1.3 percent to 15,220 yuan per tonne, pulled
higher by Wednesday's 1.4 percent jump in London. * FRANCE: Liberty House, the industrial arm of British steel tycoon Sanjeev Gupta's GFG Alliance, has made a binding offer
for miner Rio Tinto's aluminium smelter in Dunkirk, France, the largest in Europe. * COBALT: Democratic Republic of Congo is considering more
than doubling royalties on cobalt, a key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries, under a new mining code nearing parliamentary approval, the mines minister said on Wednesday.
