Boliden, the owner of the Ronnskar smelter, a major European copper producer, said on Friday that the smelter had declared force majeure on copper deliveries to customers after a fire broke out, adding that the group's other copper deliveries were not affected.
On June 13, Boliden's largest production unit, Ronnskar, stopped production for safety reasons after its Swedish factory was gutted by fire.
"At this time we cannot say when production will resume, our goal is to resume production in the coming weeks," Boliden said in an emailed statement.
Boliden declined to comment on the number of deliveries affected by force majeure. Force majeure refers to the unexpected circumstances in which an enterprise is unable to perform its contractual obligations.
Copper on the London Metal Exchange was up 0.6 per cent at $8,606 a tonne by 1500 GMT. Earlier on Friday, copper, used in the power and construction industries, hit its highest level in more than five weeks at $8,634.
The smelter produced 218,000 tonnes of copper in 2022.
A prolonged shutdown of Ronnskar could tighten supplies at a time when only a third of copper stocks in LME-registered warehouses - 30,250 tonnes - are in Europe.
