Copper price rises on supply disruption worries

Copper prices rose on Thursday as supply concerns resurfaced in Peru, the world’s second-biggest producer of the industrial metal after neighboring Chile.

Copper for delivery in December rose 2.2% from Wednesday’s settlement price, touching $4.240 per pound ($9,328 per tonne).

Stocks of the metal in Shanghai Futures Exchange warehouses were last at their lowest since June 2009, and LME on-warrant inventories slid to 90,725 tonnes, down 27% in just a week.

An indigenous community in Peru’s Espinar province that blocked a key mining road on Wednesday plans to continue the blockade indefinitely, a local leader said, in protest against the government and Glencore PLC’s Antapaccay copper mine.