Copper eased on Wednesday as London Metal Exchange inventories rebuilt. Three month copper was down 0.4 percent at 14,364 dollars a metric ton by late afternoon in London, off the three week high of 14,700 dollars touched on October 14. LME stocks climbed 11,475 tonnes on the day and are up 8 percent in a week, while available stocks, metal not earmarked for removal, are up 40 percent in the same period. In the midday market tables, copper was at 6.40 dollars a pound, down 2.22 percent.
Analysts at LME Week read the build as a valuation check. Macquarie’s Alice Fox told a briefing that at this price level copper is well above where global stocks justify, with surpluses expected for the next few years on a global basis. The Shanghai Futures Exchange’s most traded November contract closed 0.2 percent higher at 109,390 yuan a tonne.
The physical market is telling a different regional story. Chile’s Codelco is offering European customers a record premium of 350 dollars a tonne over the LME price for next year’s deliveries, according to Reuters sources, and China’s Yangshan import premium reached 148 dollars a tonne on Wednesday, its highest since October 2022, with the LME cash to three month spread in backwardation. Shipments have flowed toward American warehouses since Washington opened a copper import investigation in February 2025, leaving COMEX facilities holding roughly 70 percent of global exchange visible inventories, so metal is abundant in total and scarce where European and Chinese buyers need it.
Nickel was the LME’s best performer, jumping 4.1 percent to 16,310 dollars a tonne, its highest in more than three weeks. Britannia Global Markets’ head of metals, Neil Welsh, attributed the move to the prospect of coordinated production cuts by Chinese producers operating in Indonesia, extending the Indonesian supply policy signal that lifted nickel earlier this week.