Korea Buys Copper at Higher Premium, Seeks Aluminum (Update1)

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- South Korea’s Public Procurement Service, a state-run body that manages commodity dealing, bought 6,000 metric tons of copper and sought to double April purchases of aluminum ingots compared with March. The agency paid Glencore International AG a premium of $110 a ton over the London Metal Exchange official cash settlement price for 5,000 tons of the grade-A copper, Lee Il Hyung, an official at the agency, said today. It purchased a further 1,000 tons from BHP Billiton Marketing AG at a $124-a-ton premium, she said. The agency paid a premium of $104 a ton on March 12. The transactions more than double this month’s copper purchases compared with February’s as Asia’s third-biggest base- metals buyer boosts stockpiles, joining China in building inventories amid lower prices. London copper traded today at $4,010 a ton, 51 percent lower than 12 months ago. Separately, the agency plans to buy 6,000 tons of high- grade primary aluminum ingots of non-Western origin at a tender on April 9, according to details of the planned purchase on the service’s Web site today. The order, together with an April 2 tender, will take the agency’s purchases in April to 12,000 tons, double the total in March. In a separate tender yesterday, the Public Procurement Service bought 200 tons of nickel ingots from Glencore International at a premium of $495 a ton, Lee said. The agency also purchased 200 tons of tin ingots from Daewoo International Corp. at a $240-a-ton premium, its Web site showed.