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LONDON - Copper prices fell on Wednesday as investors retreated on fears about global economic growth and lower demand from China and the United States, the world's top two consumers.

The Japan Copper & Brass Association reported Japanese copper rolled product import fell by 2.5% y-o-y to 50,057t in the fiscal year ending March 2008. While volume of import was still high, it has fallen y-o-y the first time since the fiscal year ending March 2002. Copper tube import decreased by 19% y-o-y to 10,661t, partly due to the slowdown of new housing starts after the Japanese imposed new building standard law. Biggest importers to Japan are reported to be South Korea, China, Germany, Taiwan and North America.

According to the Japan Copper and Brass Association, total production of copper and copper alloy semis fell by 4.1% y-o-y to 72,770t in July. Output also contracted by 0.5% m-o-m in July, a second consecutive monthly decline. The fall is attributed in large part to the struggling automotive sector, which has been strongly impacted by the 11th March disaster.

Production for domestic shipments contracted by 6.6% y-o-y to reach 51,112t, whilst output for export markets fell more rapidly in January, reaching 8,898t after a 23.1% y-o-y decline (this however, was narrower than the December drop in exports of 30.7% y-o-y). Copper strip still represented the most heavily produced brass mill semi-fabricated product (27.7% of overall production in gross weight) but output decreased by 11.3% y-o-y, amounting to 16,600t in January. This was principally attributed to weak interconnector demand, the impact of the flooding in Thailand and the highly appreciated yen affecting the export market. Copper tube output decreased by 14.5% y-o-y to 9,750t in January, on weak demand from air conditioner manufacturers caused by bad weather and a slow world economy. Brass bar production fell by 7.7% y-o-y but rose by 900t since December to reach 14,206t in January. The change was attributed to improving demand from the domestic automotive and plumbing sectors.

SYDNEY -(Dow Jones)- BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP.AU) said Tuesday it expects stainless steel demand to be robust over the long-term, underpinned by China's ongoing urbanization and industrialization, the miner said in a presentation to analysts on a site tour at its nickel operations in Western Australia.

Because of slowing housing construction and the consequent decline in demand for gas appliances and water taps, the demand for brass bars in Japan is falling. demand is also being affected by the decrease in car industry activity. As a result, brass bar makers in Eastern Japan are planning to reduce production output for the fourth quarter by 20-25% on a year-to-year basis. August production in Japan was ''as low as 16,362 tonnes'', according to the Japan Copper & Brass Association. Monthly order receipt volume for the last three months of 2008 is expected to average just 15,000 tonnes.

Kitz Metal Works, a brass bar maker and subsidiary of the Kitz group, announced plans to add a continuous casting line at its Chino plant in Japan. The US$2.6M development will add a further 18,000t-19,200t to the company's annual billet production capacity. Construction work is set to begin this month and the plant is expected to be commissioned by the end of the year. The company expects that the lower production cost of the new casting line will allow for the investment cost to be recovered within five years.

Hitachi Cable Ltd. announced that it will cease production at its Tsuchiura plant by March 2012, effectively ending its domestic copper tube business. The facility produces copper tubes for air conditioners and in FY2010 it contributed to a sales volume of 20,000t; a sales value of ¥17.76B or 4.2% of the company's total revenue. The withdrawal from the business is attributed to difficulty maintaining profitability after air conditioning manufacturers shifted operations to foreign markets. Hitachi will keep a 50-50 JV with Furukawa Electric in Shanghai and its 36% share of a Thailand based copper tube manufacturer.

According to data released by the Shanghai-based nonferrous metals data provider Metalease, 18 major copper tube makers in China were operating at 35% capacity in January, in response to plummeting demand. Business activity has also been affected by the Chinese New Year festivities. The plants, which have a combined capacity of 978,000 t per year, consumed 28,000 t of refined copper in January compared to their consumption capacity of 81,500 t per month. Even though the Chinese government has increased the export tax rebate for copper tubes of diameter of less than 25 mm, the 18 copper tube producers exported only 21% of their total output in January, compared with 26% in December.

According to Tom Albanese, CEO of Rio Tinto, metal stocks will see a boost in the second half of 2009. "We're beginning to see some of the infrastructure-driven stimulus plan in China and in the U.S. playing into steel, aluminum, copper demand and other materials that [Rio Tinto [RTP 134.06 1.06 (+0.8%) ]] would produce," Albanese told CNBC.

LS-Nikko Copper Inc. forecast copper demand in South Korea, Asia's third-biggest metals buyer, may improve "gradually" later this year and in 2010 buoyed by economic stimulus measures and a shortage of scrap material.

Japan's output of rolled copper products rose 2.2% in August from July, preliminary data showed on Friday, in a sign of recovering metals demand as the country's economy appears to be on the mend.

Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd., Yazaki Corp. and other automotive wiring harness manufacturers have temporarily shut down some of their production lines in Thailand. This follows the severe flooding which directly led to Honda Motor Co. closing down local assembly lines at its factory in Bangkok as well as Toyota Motor Co. shutting down its three plants in Eastern Thailand due to parts shortages.

JX Nippon Mining & Metals, an integrated Japan-based refined copper and semi-finished products fabricator, began full-scale production of an ultrathin rolled copper foil, measuring between 6 and 9 microns in thickness. The new products are suitable for use in smartphones and tablet PCs. Advances made in the company's rolling and surface roughening process technology led to the development of the new products. The company estimates that it holds a 75% global market share of treated rolled copper foil, which finds its main application in flexible printed circuit boards for mobile devices.

SuperPower Inc, a subsidiary of Furukawa Electric, announced on 7th December that it plans to double the production capacity of superconducting wirerod at its US plant in 2013. The company said it anticipates demand for the wirerod, which is used in areas such as superconducting magnetic energy storage, will increase over the next four to five years, and that it is intending to raise production to meet the new demand.

General Cable said that operating income in Q4 2010 increased by 50% to US$63.2M from US$42.1M in the previous quarter. The company said that Q4 was the third consecutive quarter of sequential volume improvement, particularly due to better than expected demand across Europe and strong demand for transmission products in the US and Brazil. It was commented that sales volume of transmission products in the US reached an all-time quarterly high in Q4. It is anticipated that General Cable will see sales volume grow by 2% q-o-q in Q1 2011supported by strong demand in North America and elsewhere.

Chilean copper producer Codelco expects that new uses of copper, mainly related to its antimicrobial capacity, will boost world demand by 300,000t/y within the next eight years. Potential end use sectors include copper fiber clothes, copper mesh cages for fish farming, and copper surfaces in health care centres and public transport. Codelco participates in development programmes which aim to promote the benefits of using copper.

Japanese Furukawa Electric Co. plans to begin exporting copper power cable from its Shenyang production plant in China to the US and Europe from September 2011. So far, the company has been providing cables for the Chinese market only. It was reported that the quality of cables has improved sufficiently to be exported to industrialised countries. The company hopes to achieve annual sales of US$125M to industrialised countries in the next five years. The company expects strong demand from sustainable sources of energy.

It was reported that Sumitomo Electric Industries Ltd., will invest ¥63.0M into its automotive business unit in FY 2011. The company plans to setup subsidiaries in the early part of the financial year in the Philippines and in Cambodia with the aim to make wiring harnesses at lower cost. Sumitomo has also earmarked some of the funds for expanding the production capacity at its manufacturing facility in Mexico in order to meet demand.

Wind energy's 32% growth rate in 2009 as an example of "the impressive growth rate of renewables" The total global potential for renewable energy "is substantially higher than both current and future projected global energy demand" is the message of the Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation released by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) today in Abu Dhabi.