Nickel Rises to Eight-Month High After Top Producer Warns Miners

(Bloomberg) -- Nickel rose to the highest in eight months after the Philippines, the world's largest producer of the ore, threatened to close mines that fail to meet environmental standards.

President Rodrigo Duterte has told mining companies who breach regulations to improve operations or face closure, while the environment secretary said Friday that less than a third of miners meet international standards.

“They're discussing reviewing all mines for environmental reasons, making markets a bit nervous over where China's nickel ore supply is going to come from,” said Xiao Fu, a London-based analyst at Bank of China International.

Nickel rose as much as 4.4 percent to $10,410 a metric ton before trading at $10,110 by 5:07 p.m. on the London Metal Exchange. Prices surged 5.6 percent Friday, the biggest advance since February. GMK Norilsk Nickel PJSC, which rivals Rio de Janeiro-based Vale SA as the world's top nickel producer, climbed 4.3 percent on Monday.

Other industrial metals were mixed in London, with a 3 percent jump in tin. Copper fell 0.4 percent to $4,891 an ounce, after last week's 4.5 percent gain, the best such performance since April. The FTSE 350 Mining Index rose 2.1 percent.

Zinc, the best performing base metal on the LME this year with a 33 percent advance, may be capped by a possible increase in supply from Glencore Plc, Morgan Stanley said in a note. The metal fell 1.6 percent on Monday.

--With assistance from Winnie Zhu To contact the reporter on this story: Kevin Crowley in Johannesburg at kcrowley1@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jason Rogers at jrogers73@bloomberg.net, Tony Barrett, Nicholas Larkin