| Copper gained, halting four straight sessions of declines, as an earthquake in Chile and a mine failure in Indonesia spurred supply concerns.
An earthquake shook parts of northern Chile, the world's biggest copper producer, the U.S. Geological Survey said. Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc., the world's biggest publicly traded producer of the metal, reported a mine failure at its Grasberg pit in Indonesia. Copper has tripled in the past five years, partly on supply disruptions.
''The fear premium over copper supplies will support prices,'' said Matthew Zeman, a metals trader at LaSalle Futures Group in Chicago. ''We could see a small bounce in copper now.''
Copper futures for December delivery added 2.7 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $3.114 a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The price rose as much as 1.8 percent after the earthquake struck.
The quake had a magnitude of 5.8 and hit 105 kilometers (65 miles) east of the city of Iquique at 12:12 p.m. local time, the USGS said on its Web site.
The quake was centered in the same province as Collahuasi, a copper mine controlled by Xstrata Plc and Anglo American Plc. Mine managers haven't reported any damage, Edwin Ugarte, vice president of human resources at Collahuasi, said in a telephone interview from the city of Iquique.
Freeport, based in Phoenix, lowered its near-term sales outlook, citing a ''small-scale failure'' at Grasberg, the world's second-largest copper mine.
Still, concerns about slowing global growth may outweigh ''fear'' related to the supply situation and prevent large price gains, Zeman said. Earlier, copper had dropped as much as 1.5 percent on demand concern.
European Economic Growth
The European Commission cut its growth outlook for the 15- nation euro region for the rest of the year and predicted a recession for Germany, the area's largest economy. Copper has tumbled 27 percent from a record in May on speculation a slowing global expansion would reduce demand.
''The copper market now focuses on demand,'' Dan Brebner, a metals analyst at UBS AG, said today by phone from London. ''The Grasberg incident will lend support to prices, but the overall driver remains the near-term demand outlook, which remains negative.''
On the London Metal Exchange, copper for delivery in three months rose $10, or 0.1 percent, to $6,840 a metric ton ($3.1026 a pound).
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