Prices climbed to their highest level in nearly a month Monday although trading volumes were lean with markets in top buyer China shut for a public holiday

"We expect copper price to go through $4 per lb ($8,800 per tonne) over the next couple of weeks while we see continued resilience in demand and moderate supply growth.

"With the additional delays in a lot of the new supply we expect copper price for the remainder of the second quarter and the third quarter to be higher," he said.

The drop in copper stocks at Shanghai warehouses along with product inventories at Chinese fabricators suggest demand from China is on the rebound, investment bank Macquarie said.

"We believe the copper stock build in China has come to an end and refined copper inventory will decline over the next quarter as a result of improving demand from China," Macquarie Commodities Research said in a note.

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