Jinchuan Group of China declared force majeure at one of its smelters which is predicted to reduce its supply by half in the coming months.

The stoppage comes only a few weeks after outages at two large copper mines, Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold’s Grasberg in Indonesia and Rio Tinto’s Bingham Canyon in the US.

If the incident at Jinchuan Group's Gansu province plant results in lower output, analysts believes China will have to increase its copper imports. The Asian giant may also shore up international copper prices on the London Metal Exchange and push up physical premiums, the charges buyers pay suppliers to secure metal.

The force majeure may also help avoid a global copper surplus that experts had been expecting in 2013 due to new mine supply and softening demand in some regions.