METALS-Shanghai copper hits six-month high after Freeport's Indonesia force majeure

SHANGHAI, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Shanghai copper touched a six-month high on Thursday after Freeport-McMoran FCX.N declared force majeure at its Indonesia Grasberg mine, with traders pricing in further tightness of raw material supply.

A phased restart may occur in the first half of 2026, and the 2026 output from Grasberg, one of the world's biggest copper and gold mines, will potentially be 35% lower than previous estimates, Freeport said on Wednesday.

Operations at Grasberg have been temporarily suspended after a large flow of wet material blocked access to some underground parts of the mine earlier this month.

The market has been pricing in some tightness in copper raw material since the suspension, with the latest development supporting further move upwards.

The most-traded copper contract on Shanghai Futures Exchange SCFcv1 closed daytime trading up by 3.34% to trade at 82,660 yuan ($11,599.29) per metric ton at 0800GMT.

The red metal reached 82,980 yuan a ton earlier this session, the highest since March 26.

Goldman Sachs on Thursday lowered its global copper mine supply forecast for 2025 and 2026 after the force majeure was announced.

The bank estimated a total loss of 525,000 tons of copper mine supply due to the disruption, cutting their forecast of global mine supply by 160,000 tons for the second half of 2025 and 200,000 tons in 2026.

The affected output volume from Grasberg mine was far higher than expected, supporting stronger price outlook for copper in the short term, analysts at Chinese broker Jinrui Futures said in a note.

The benchmark three-month copper CMCU3 on the London Metals Exchange dropped 0.31% to $10,305.5 a ton by 0821 GMT. It reached a 15-month high on Wednesday, up as much as 3.9%.

Among other SHFE base metals, nickel SNIcv1 rose 1.01%, aluminium SAFcv1 added 0.39%, zinc SZNcv1 climbed 0.57%, lead SPBcv1 nudged up 0.15% and tin SSNcv1 was up 0.79%.

Elsewhere on LME, aluminium CMAL3 dropped 0.36%, zinc CMZN3 tumbled 0.65%, nickel CMNI3 was up 0.18%, tin CMSN3 gained 0.49% and lead CMPB3 was little changed.

($1 = 7.1263 Chinese yuan renminbi)