Copper futures in Shanghai jumped by the maximum daily limit Wednesday on expectation that traders in China will resume purchases of the metal as the market reopened after the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday.

Prices in London have gained 5.6 percent since Feb. 4. Copper for delivery in three months on the London Metal Exchange (LME) closed at US$3,139 a metric ton Tuesday, the highest this year.

"It's mainly buying back by speculators after London's gains," Gu Yuan, a metals futures trader with Shanghai Oriental Futures Co., said.

The most actively traded April contract gained 3 percent, the maximum increase allowed on a daily basis, to 29,990 yuan (US$3,622) a metric ton.

Copper for delivery in three months on the LME was bid at US$3,125 a ton and offered at US$3,135 a ton.

Buying by Chinese consumers, with Shanghai��s reopening, may provide the"impetus for copper to retest" 15-year highs, N.M. Rothschild & Sons (Australia) Ltd. said.

London copper rose to a 15-year high of US$3,179.50 a ton Oct. 11 last year as demand for copper power cables and electrical wiring in houses, cars and appliances in China, the world��s biggest consumer of the metal, helped drain London inventories by 83 percent in the past 12 months.

Copper for March delivery on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 1.65 U.S. cents, or 1.1 percent, to US$1.442 a pound in after-hours trading Wednesday. The contract rose 1.3 percent Tuesday to US$1.4585, the highest for the most-active contract since Jan. 3.

Source: Shenzhen Daily-Agencies