China Minmetals Corp, the nation's largest metals trader, has exhausted stockpiles and halted shipments of concentrate from its Century zinc mine in northern Australia pending repairs to a damaged pipeline.

"We've now completed shipping of all the zinc concentrate stocks that were stored," Sally Cox, a spokeswoman for Minmetals' Melbourne-based MMG unit, said yesterday. The mine in Queensland state is the world's second-largest open-pit zinc operation.

Customers including Nyrstar NV, the world's largest smelter of zinc, will source alternative supplies while the company seeks to complete repairs to the pipeline that ruptured on Oct 5, Cox said.