China reserves hike spurs some sales of metal stocks

* China's bank reserves hike spurs investors to sell copper * But massive base metals stocks selling seen unlikely * Private stocks of copper seen at 1 mln tonnes By Polly Yam H0NG KONG, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Chinese investors are selling some copper stocks following Bejing's surprise hike in bank reserve requirements, but massive destocking of base metals may not happen immediately, traders and analysts said on Wednesday. China on Tuesday said it would raise commercial lenders' reserve requirement ratios by 50 basis points as of Jan. 18, a move that could reduce bank loan availability. "Investors were selling copper stocks in the spot market and in the April contract on the Shanghai exchange," said Jing Chuan, chief researcher at Great Wall Futures. It is unclear how many tonnes the investors sold on Wednesday morning, with Jing estimating at least 2,000 tonnes. "It has been a mild reaction so far," Jing said, China, the world's top copper consumer and the main driver of a 140 percent price rise last year, added more than 1 million tonnes of refined copper in private stocks last year, about 18 percent of domestic consumption, said Yang Changhua, analyst at state-backed research group Antaike. The stocks were held by investors, merchants, end-users and smelters. Yang expected more copper stocks to be sold into the spot market from the second quarter of the year as monetary conditions continue to tighten. The same was likely true of aluminium, where smelter officials estimate private primary metal inventories were also around 1 million tonnes, the bulk of which was held by fabricators, smelters and merchants. "The hike is not strong enough to push out stocks from warehouses. But the story would be different if Beijing imposes further tightening measures," said an aluminium smelter official in Guizhou province. PRICE DEPENDENT The price of metals was also seen as key to whether material remained in storage or found its way to the market. Wang Jianjun, the chief of international trade at China's top zinc producer Zhuzhou Smelter , said some refined zinc stocks in the country had been locked up in financial contracts and would not be available to the market unless prices fell sharply. "Funding is still very sufficient for now," Wang said, who estimated around 500,000 tonnes of zinc were held in private hands in China. In the case of nickel, investors were only likely to sell if prices rally. "Nickel stock owners are mostly rich people. They have a lot of cash and bought nickel as a saving tool," said a nickel trader in Shanghai, estimating more than 100,000 tonnes of refined nickel was still in private stocks. "Unless prices rise to at least 150,000 yuan a tonne, they won't sell," the trader said, adding his firm and some investors may even buy more nickel if domestic prices fell to 110,000 yuan. The price was around 140,000 yuan on Wednesday. Antaike estimated China's privately held nickel stocks at about 153,000 tonnes last month. (Editing by Michael Urquhart).