Coppernico Metals Inc. CPPMF

worried about supply ? Trafigura Group yanks LME CU

[swale13]

Trafigura Group withdrew a significant proportion of copper that’s been pulled from London Metal Exchange warehouses, contributing to wild swings in prices, according to people familiar with the matter.

It’s not unusual for physical traders to withdraw metal from the exchange to ship to their customers, and Trafigura isn’t the only trading house to have taken metal off the exchange in recent months, the people said. And the move comes against a backdrop of very low inventories globally.

The drawdown has made the trading house the talk of the copper market, helping to drive available stocks to the lowest since 1974 and pushing a key spread to the highest on record. It’s also helped to spur outright copper prices higher, with benchmark futures up about 13% since the start of the month and approaching record highs set in May.

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It’s not unusual for physical traders to withdraw metal from the exchange to ship to their customers, and Trafigura isn’t the only trading house to have taken metal off the exchange in recent months, the people said. And the move comes against a backdrop of very low inventories globally.

Still, total requests to withdraw more than 150,000 tons of copper from LME warehouses in the past two months have all but drained the available stocks on the exchange, and Trafigura represents a significant proportion of those, the people said. 

A spokeswoman for Trafigura declined to comment.