HANOI, May 10 (Reuters) – Copper prices touched record highs in both London and Shanghai markets on Monday on hopes for improved demand amid tightening supply.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange rose to an all-time high of $10,747.50 a tonne earlier in the session before easing to $10,694 a tonne, still up 2.7%, at 0711 GMT.

The most-traded June copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange closed up 4.8% to 77,720 yuan ($12,094.62) a tonne, after scaling a peak of 78,270 yuan earlier.

Sentiment has been boosted following record high LME prices since 2011 hit on Friday.

Bullish investors bet that demand for copper will increase further as the world economy recovers from COVID-19 slumps and as investments into green energy sectors ramp up, while prices were also supported by tight supply in the concentrate market.

“Prices continue to rise as the world is talking about the global recovery and the need for metals,” said Malcolm Freeman, a director at UK broker Kingdom Futures, adding that the LME contract “looks set to attempt $11,000 on a technical basis”.

However, he noted that industrial players are not buying at this price level.

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FUNDAMENTALS

  • ShFE aluminium surpassed 20,000 yuan a tonne, rising as much as 3.8% to 20,445 yuan a tonne, its highest since January 2010, while ShFE zinc hit its highest since March 2008 of 23,065 yuan a tonne.
  • LME aluminium rose 2% to $2,590.50 a tonne and zinc advanced 1% to $3,045 a tonne.
  • A group of 15 key copper smelters in China have agreed to cut their purchases of raw material copper concentrate in 2021 by 8.8% year-on-year, state-backed research house Antaike said, in a bid to boost flagging treatment and refining charges.
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($1 = 6.4260 yuan)

(Reporting by Mai Nguyen; Editing by Rashmi Aich, Vinay Dwivedi and Ed Osmond)