Japan Official Copper Price Continues Soaring

Nippon Mining & Metals announced on Thursday the firm revised up the official copper ingot price by 20,000 yen to 930,000 yen per tonne for domestic shipment in February. The price has been revised 5 times within this month and the latest revision occurred only 2 business days ago. The latest price surged by 13.4% from the beginning of this month and hit the highest since 940,000 yen on 1 November, 2007. Monthly average would be 887,000 yen without any more revision within February.Copper at London Metal Exchange exceeded US$ 8,100 per tonne at cash and 3-month future prices on Wednesday, both of which hit the highest since mid October 2007. Confusions in stock and financial markets were settled down while copper productive troubles emerged due to electricity shortage in Chile and China. Another positive factor was that LME copper inventory continued decreasing to below 140,000 tonnes, the lowest level since early October 2007.The telegraphic transfer selling rate was 109.12 yen per US dollar on Thursday along underlying trend of relatively weaker yen. Japanese smelters’ breakeven point is estimated to be 940,000 yen per tonne including 43,000 yen of premium and charges based on New York kerb on Wednesday, which represented US$ 8,220 per tonne for LME cash price.