London copper fell to a one-week low on Tuesday, pressured by concerns over the impact of the Omicron variant and rising stockpiles while a firmer dollar made the greenback-denominated commodity more expensive for holders of other currencies.
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was down 0.4 percent to $9,411 a ton. Earlier in the session, prices fell to their lowest level since Dec. 6 at $9,398.
The most-traded January copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange slipped 1.1 percent to 68,660 yuan ($10,785.08) a tonne, having earlier fallen to its lowest level since Nov. 19 at 68,510 yuan.
Mainland China detected first case of the Omicron variant in the port city of Tianjin.
Meanwhile, major Chinese manufacturing province Zhejiang is fighting its first COVID-19 cluster this year, with more than a dozen Chinese-listed companies suspending production due to tightened COVID-19 curbs.
On-warrant LME inventories rose to 80,350 tons, their highest in more than two months, with LME cash copper on the three-month contract flipping to a discount of $12.50 a ton, first time since Sept. 17.
