Oct 20 (Reuters) - Industrial metals fell on Wednesday as China's pledge to bring down coal prices eased worries about supply disruption in metals and investors booked profits after recent strong gains.
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange fell 1.9% to $9,957 a tonne by 0254 GMT, while the most-traded November copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange dropped 3.2% to 72,910 yuan ($11,406.80) a tonne.
ShFE zinc tumbled 6.8% to 25,320 yuan a tonne, aluminium shed 6.3% to 22,800 yuan a tonne, copper lost 3% to 73,020 yuan a tonne and tin dropped 3.1% to 280,580 yuan a tonne.
China's state planner said on Tuesday it was studying ways of intervening in high coal prices and would take all necessary measures to bring them back to a reasonable range.
The most-active Dalian coking coal contract and coke futures both dropped 9% on Wednesday, while China's coal futures fell 8% to their downward limit in night trading on Tuesday.
The power crunch in China and electricity price hikes in Europe have raised concerns of supply shortages in base metals, some of which are already seeing multi-year low inventories.
Last week, LME zinc surged 20.4%, copper gained 9.8% and aluminium advanced 6.9%.
FUNDAMENTALS
* The London Metal Exchange said on Tuesday it would amend lending rules and implement a backwardation limit and delivery deferral mechanism for copper trading with immediate effect.
* For the top stories in metals and other news, click or
MARKETS NEWS
* Asian shares advanced and U.S. long-dated bond yields edged up to a five-month high on rising optimism about the global economy and corporate earnings while the yen slipped to a four-year low on the dollar.
DATA/EVENTS (GMT)
0600 UK CPI YY Sept
0900 EU HICP Final MM, YY Sept
1800 US Federal Reserve issues the Beige Book of
economic condition
($1 = 6.3918 yuan) (Reporting by Mai Nguyen in Hanoi; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
