LONDON. May 4: Strike action at a giant mine in Chile sent copper prices sky-high this week on the London Metal Exchange (LME), where the metal hit its highest, level so far this year, reports AFP.

Dealers became troubled by the prospect of social upheaval that risked cutting into Chilean copper exports. The country is far and away the world's leading exporter of this metal, which is vital to the building trade in the western world.

The 7.000 workers at one of the largest copper deposits in the world at Cnuqulcamata in nortliern Chile downed tools and have not worked at the mine since Thursday. The strike, driven by wage protests, made the Lxmdon market tremble.

Among tropical commodities. coca prices continued to climb under a wave of speculative buying apparently driven by investment funds that have put their money on a Tall in next year’s harvest from Ivory

Coast.

Grain prices were more nervous than ever, as dealers expected a poor crop in the United States this season. In contrast, oil prices calmed down after the United States announced that they would .sell sorn? of its strategic reserves.

ALUMINIUM: Shiny. This metal climbed some 40 dollars to more than 1,650 per tonne. The United States is the world's largest consumer of this metal.

The market failed to react to a rise of 13,275 tonnes, in. LME stocks to 834.450.

NICKEL: Stabje. There was little activity on this market, with prices still holding around 8.100 dollars per tonne. Stocks fell by 186 tonnes to 35,076.

TIN: Calm. The price of Un remained close to the previous week s levels at around 6,600 dollars per tonne. LME stocks advanced 170 tonnes to 8,620.

OIL: Lower. The price of." brent North Sea crude oil fell. by around one dollar to 18.80*

dollars per barrel, weighed down by the announced that the United States had sold off part of its strategic stocks.

Concern about spiralling US petrol pump prices led Wash ington on Monday to announce sale of 12 million barrels of strategic US crude oil reserves to put a broke on gas station prices.

The price of petrol in the United States has soared in the past few weeks, bringing memories flooding back to US car manufacturers of the nightmare 1973 oil crisis and the turbulence caused by the 1991 Gulf War.

Later in the week, the price of crude oil was further depressed by a rise in US stocks of petrol and distillates shown by weekly figures of the American Petroleum Institute.

RUBBER: Firms'. The price of rubber stood firm after the-weakness seen in previous weeks, rising some seven ppunds to around 990 pounds per tonne. The fall In the value of sterling against the dollar

contributed to rubber's gains, one British trader said.

The market was calm because of a series of public holidays in Japan and Southeast Asia.

SUGAR: Meltdown. The white sugar market was licking its wounds after prices plummeted by almost 20 per cent In just three weeks. An analyst at the GNI trading house said that the fgll in prices had caused the rates to flee the sinking ship," as speculative investment trusts quit the market.

Prices stabilised at around 334 dollars per tonne, after a fall of dollars during the week.

After a mediocre harvest last year and record imports from India, experts forecast a record harvest this season that would easily edver burgeoning demand worldwide.

VEGETABLE OILS: Solid Speculators plughed into the soya market because of expectations that increased maize prices would encourage farmers to plant maize instead of

soya. As a result, bean prices rose.

Prices also gained from a huge order of Brazilian soya from China, dealers said.

Prices on the Rotterdam market held firm at 102.5 fullders per hundred kilos, he other vegetable oils generally rose. Sunflower gained five dollars to 630 dollars per tonne. Palm oil was the only loser on the market, falling by five dollars to 572.5 dollars per tonne.

GRAINS: Jitters. Favourable weather forecasts for the American greater plains wheat-producing region ' knocked grain prices off the peaks of last week on the Chicago markets.

The price of a bushel df wheat (27.216 kilos) fell below 6.5 dollars from a high of 7.17 dollars last week.

But a report highlighting the poor harvest in Kansas and subsequent forecasts of adverse weather conditions sent prices upwards once again.

Dealers still feared that the

forthcoming harvest in the United States will be hit by the current drought that has dried out the soil in corp grain-growing regloss.

In London, the price of a tonne of wheat ended the week at broadly the same level as last week at 133 pounds per tonne.

COTTON: Rollercoaster. The Chicago furthers market followed the downward trend in grain prices at the start of the week before picking up at week's end because of fears that the American cotton harvest might be smaller than forecast.

Dealers feared that the area given over to cotton cultivation was smaller than had been expected and that thp cotton bushes had been damaged by a drought in Texas.

WOOL: Fall. Prices In, the • Australian auction houses fell and the Eastern Index lost three Australian cents to 547 cents per pence pqr kilo. In Britain, wool prices fell by 12