By Tatyana Shumsky 
 

NEW YORK--Copper prices rose to a two-week high as planned strikes at two key copper mines, in Indonesia and Peru, stoked traders' worries about supply.

The most actively traded contract, for December delivery, was recently up 1.80 cents, or 0.6%, at $3.0820 a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

About 10,000 workers at Freeport-McMoRan Inc.'s Grasberg copper and gold mine in Indonesia will begin a month-long strike next week to protest unsafe working conditions, union officials said Monday. Grasberg is the world's third-largest open-pit copper mine and last year produced 928 million pounds of copper.

"The threat of that much copper out of the market is giving prices a boost," said Bob Haberkorn, a senior commodities broker with RJO Futures in Chicago.

Meanwhile, workers at Peru's largest copper mine, Antamina, are due to begin a strike on Nov. 10, as part of a push for higher wages.

Combined, the two strikes could remove as much as 70,000 metric tons of monthly copper supply from the market, traders at RBC Capital Markets said in a note to clients. This is about 5% of monthly global supply.

Copper futures rose to $3.0930 a pound, the highest level since Oct. 14, in response to the news.

Some investors also remain optimistic that authorities in Beijing will announce further stimulus measures in the coming weeks, Mr. Haberkorn said. China is the world's largest copper consumer, accounting for about 40% of global demand, and recent weakness in the country's economic reading has already led to targeted stimulus efforts from the government.

Write to Tatyana Shumsky at tatyana.shumsky@wsj.com

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