Foreign news on December 31, driven by tight supply and increased demand, industrial metal prices recorded the biggest annual increase since 2009 in 2021, with aluminum and tin rising the most.
Industrial metal prices were mixed on Friday and trading was light during the Christmas and New year holidays.
The LME (LME) index of copper, aluminium, nickel, zinc, lead and tin is up 32 per cent this year after rising 20 per cent in 2020.
"this has been a year of strong recovery in demand from the pandemic," said Wenyu Yao, an analyst at (ING), the Dutch international group. "most metals markets have turned into supply shortages."
"looking ahead to 2022, we expect this to be a year of normalization. We expect demand growth to slow, "she added, adding that limited supply should keep prices high, at least in the short term.
LME copper for delivery in three months rose 0.3%, or $29, to close at $9720.50 a tonne, up 25% in 2021 and 26% in 2020.
Aluminium for three-month delivery fell 0.37 per cent to $2807.50 a tonne, but rose 42 per cent in 2021, the biggest increase since 2009.
Zinc for three-month delivery rose 0.04 per cent to $3534 a tonne, up 28.5 per cent for the year, the biggest increase since 2017.
Three-month nickel rose 0.83 per cent to $20757, up 25 per cent so far this year, the biggest annual increase since 2019.
Three-month lead rose 0.3% to $2304 and 15.5% in 2021, the biggest increase since 2017.
Tin for three-month delivery fell 0.86 per cent to $38860 a tonne. The increase in 2021 was more than 90%, the biggest annual increase in at least 20 years.
Other commodity prices also rose sharply in 2021, and global stock markets are expected to achieve double-digit gains for the third year in a row.
China's manufacturing purchasing managers index and non-manufacturing business activity index were 50.3% and 52.7% respectively in December, up 0.2% and 0.4% from the previous month, while the composite PMI output index was 52.2%, unchanged from the previous month, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday. It shows that the overall recovery of China's economy has been maintained, and the level of prosperity has rebounded steadily.
"China has been the main source of demand for base metals since 2003, but we think this trend has begun to end," said Justin Smirk, an economist at Westpac.
The Las Bambas copper mine in Peru, owned by Minmetals, said on Thursday it would restart production after reaching an agreement with a Peruvian community that blocked key transport routes.
Copper production in Chile, the world's largest copper producer, fell 1.6 per cent in November from a year earlier, according to figures released by the Chilean government on Friday.
Chile's National Bureau of Statistics ((INE)) said the country produced 485716 tons of copper in November. Chilean copper production fell 2 per cent year-on-year to 5.18 million tons in the first 11 months of 2021.
), LME and the Shanghai Futures Exchange will be closed for the New year holiday on Monday, January 3, 2022, and trading will resume on Tuesday, January 4.
