Oil Trades Above $126 After Rising on U.S. Gasoline-Supply Drop

By Glenys Sim

July 31 (Bloomberg) -- Copper rose the most in four weeks in Shanghai after Grupo Mexico SAB said it hasn't set a date to resume production from Cananea, the largest copper mine in Mexico.

Copper on the London Metal Exchange has jumped 22 percent this year, partly on supply disruptions. The mine probably won't open this year, Daniel Muniz, chief financial officer of the Mexico City-based company, said yesterday in a call with analysts.

``Copper rose on the back of bullish supply news and short- covering,'' Anne-Laure Tremblay, an analyst at BNP Paribas SA in London, said in a report late yesterday.

October-delivery copper added as much as 1,030 yuan, or 1.7 percent, to 61,830 yuan ($9,051) a metric ton on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, the biggest gain since July 3. The most-active contract closed at 61,770 yuan.

The metal for delivery in three months rose as much as $145, or 1.8 percent, to $8,175 a ton on the LME, before trading at $8,142 a ton at 3:29 p.m. Singapore time. The contract gained as much as 2.9 percent yesterday, also the biggest rise in four weeks.

Cananea, which hasn't been open since April because of a labor dispute, had an average annual output of 130,000 tons prior to the strike. Grupo Mexico was the world's seventh-largest copper producer by 2007 output, according to U.K. consulting company CRU.

Among other LME-traded metals, aluminum rose 1.2 percent to $2,995 a ton, zinc was up 4.8 percent at $1,960, lead added 1.6 percent to $2,215, and nickel gained 0.8 percent to $18,900. Tin had not traded as of 3:33 p.m. in Singapore.

To contact the reporter for this story: Glenys Sim in Singapore at gsim4@bloomberg.net