LONDON (Reuters) – Global copper smelting activity powered to a 13-month peak in January as operations in China ramped up ahead of seasonal construction demand, data from satellite surveillance of copper plants showed. The number of inactive smelters fell to the lowest level since February 2018, according to a statement on Thursday from commodities broker Marex and SAVANT, a satellite analytics service it launched with Earth-i in 2019. “The strong start to the year in the SAVANT measures of copper smelting activity corroborate our own observations from the physical markets, which is an industr…