(Yicai) May 17 -- China's largest molybdenum producer CMOC Group denied losses and said its commodity trader IXM is keeping risks under control after prices of copper futures on the Comex in New York Mercantile Exchange recently surged to near record highs.

IXM's hedging strategy of buying in one market and selling the same in another is a common industry practice, CMOC said yesterday. The company is doing hedging and arbitrage trading, with the risks being under control, it noted.

Commodity traders Trafigura and IXM are looking to buy physical copper to deliver against large short positions on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where copper prices soared on May 15, Reuters reported yesterday.

Copper futures contract 2407 on COMEX rose to USD5.13 per pound, or about USD11,300 per ton, the highest since March 2022. Premiums on the contract also set a record of being higher than those on contracts on COMEX last September.

Geneva-based IXM is one of the world's largest traders of physical non-ferrous metals.

In a separate statement on the same day, CMOC said that IXM uses derivatives contracts on the world's major metal exchanges to strictly manage commodity price risks based on its global demand for physical trade. This is not directly related to the realizable value of CMOC's copper and will not affect its selling price, it added.

CMOC's record-high copper price and output this year will strongly support its financial performance, according to the company.

Shares of CMOC [SHA: 603993] closed 0.2 percent higher at CNY8.69 (USD1.20) apiece in Shanghai today after the stock tumbled 5 percent yesterday. The broader Shanghai Composite Index ended up 1 percent.

Editor: Martin Kadiev