Starting date is 1st April 2010. I am concentrating on the 3 main regions of importance (USA, Asia and Europe) and the 7 largest individual stockpiles which comprise the majority of what is termed the LME stockpile. The 7 largest individual stockpiles in order of tons held as at end of day 1st April with the net change for that day in brackets are - New Orleans - 208,350 (-225) Busan (Sth Korea) - 76,950 (no change) St Louis - 81,325 (-125) Rotterdam (Netherlands) - 29,325 (-1100) Chicago - 30,150 (no change) Singapore - 19,775 (no change) Bilbao (Spain) - 15,300 (no change)
At end of day 1st April the LME copper stockpile stood at 512,450 tons after a net change of -1875 tons for the day. The 7 largest individual stockpiles as noted above are spread across USA (3), Asia (2) and Europe (2). To make the task simpler I am arbitrarily applying a minimum 250 ton limit to define a significant change. You can drill down by Copper/Year/Month/Day/Individual Stockpile from this site - http://www.basemetals.com/stocks.aspx to see the same data I am using and to view the stockpile changes that I am excluding which are <250 tons.
Apr 1 - 512,450 (-1875) : Hamburg -250, Rotterdam -1100 Apr 2 - 512,575 (+125) : Liverpool -250, Rotterdam +375 Apr 7 - 510,650 (-1925) : Busan -400, New Orleans -850 Apr 8 - 511,250 (+600) : New Orleans -750, Chicago +1475 Apr 9 - 511,925 (+675) : New Orleans -550, Rotterdam +500, St Louis +925 Apr 12 - 511,075 (-850) : New Orleans -375 Apr 13 - 510,625 (-450) : Bilbao -350, St Louis +350 Apr 14 - 509,650 (-975) : New Orleans -300, Rotterdam -250 Apr 15 - 510,425 (+775) : Busan -600, Chicago +850, Rotterdam +475 Apr 16 - 509,400 (-1025) - Bilbao -400, New Orleans -250 Apr 19 - 507,875 (-1525) - Bilbao -275, Busan -400, New Orleans -325, Singapore -250 Apr 20 - 507,525 (-350) - Singapore -300, Gwangyang +500 Apr 21 - 507,800 (+275) - Rotterdam -275, Singapore -350, New Orleans +700, St Louis +325 Apr 22 - 507,125 (-675) - New Orleans -300, Rotterdam -275 Apr 23 - 507,150 (+25) - Bilbao -450, Singapore -600, Gwangyang +500, Rotterdam +250, St Louis +500 Apr 26 - 506,125 (-1025) - New Orleans -700 Apr 27 - 505,350 (-775) - New Orleans -550 Apr 28 - 504,025 (-1325) - Bilbao -500, New Orleans -725 Apr 29 - 502,550 (-1475) - Bilbao -400, Busan -450, New Orleans -425, Singapore -725, St Louis +875 Apr 30 - 499,300 (-3250) - Busan -800, New Orleans -1200, Singapore -875
The drawdown is not happening as quickly as I might have hoped. It was important to get below the psychological 500,000t figure and we just snuck in but <400,000t has to be the target over the next few months. May is the crunch month, if we fail to see a significant reduction in the LME stockpile then it may be that the global recovery has stalled. The quintessential oxymoron of a US jobless recovery added to a failure by the bellwether metal to make much of a dent in the stockpile may be portents of bigger problems to come. Perhaps the dip in the price of copper from $US3.50'ish to $US3.35'ish is representative of both this and the still unusually high stockpile figure.
May also marks the annual Chilean copper miners strike - I expected it to be put on hold in 2009 because of the GFC but they were not to be denied. This year they have the tragedy of the earthquake to contend with but I think we'll see them lay down tools again.
It's also interesting to review the chart history of the LME Copper Stockpile since 1998 charted against the copper price - http://www.infomine.com/investment/charts.aspx?mv=1&f=f&r=15y&c=ccopper.xusd.ulb&w=wcopper_lme_warehouse#chart
Of the total ~13,000t drawdown for the month Asia accounted for ~6,000t, USA ~5,000t and Europe ~2000t.
Also important to note that PNA will not be affected by any Resource tax the Henry tax review might care to deliver tomorrow - it seems we got caught up in the vortex on Friday.
PNA Price at posting:
$2.58 Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held
