Prices of copper recovered losses Friday on hopes that Greece will no longer push for a referendum on its bailout package and after the European Central Bank slashed its benchmark interest rate, whetting anew investor appetite for the raw commodity.

In the London Metal Exchange, benchmark copper locked at $US7,910 a tonne versus Wednesday's closing level at $US7,885 a tonne. Earlier in the session, after the European Central Bank announced its rate cut by a quarter point to 1.25 per cent, copper traded a high of $S7,960 a tonne.

In the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, the most actively traded contract for December delivery grew US0.75 cents, or 0.2 per cent, settling at $3.5885 a tonne.

The European Central Bank rate cut gave a much-needed boost to base metals, even if for the short term.

"The fundamentals should support copper and other metals: Inventories have been falling across the board lately, Chinese imports are healthy and cancelled warrants have been rising. But commodity markets at the moment are almost ignoring fundamentals. They are politically driven," Commerzbank analyst Daniel Briesemann told the Business Recorder.

A decline in metals stocks coupled with a growth in cancelled warrants in the last few weeks connote demand for industrial metals was still robust.

Latest data showed copper inventories in warehouses monitored by London Metal Exchange dropped 1,150 tonnes to 422,125 tonnes, the lowest since February. Inventories have fallen by about 10 per cent in the last five weeks.