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Copper

Wall Street Journal sees a debt-ceiling copper glow up – by Frik Els (Mining.com – May 19, 2023)

https://www.mining.com/

A week or so ago, America’s preeminent financial paper, the Wall Street Journal, in a section called Heard on the Street, made this claim: The Next Big Bull Market Could Be Copper

To those who happened upon your humble reporter’s work for the first time after being piqued (I know I was) by the WSJ article, let me start by saying: You’re welcome! MINING.COM has always believed Orange Metal Good (OMG) and we appreciate a hard hitter like the WSJ joining us in banging the drum for copper. And congratulations for such a dramatic entry into the annals of copper market predictions.

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‘It’s still standing today’: B.C.’s iconic Mill No. 3 celebrates 100 years of history – by Melanie Nagy (CTV News – May 2023)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/

Off British Columbia’s busy Sea-to-Sky Highway just north of Vancouver, is the Britannia Mine Museum, which is now commemorating 100 years of Mill No.3. The towering structure, built from concrete and steel in 1923, sits on a mountainside slope next to Howe Sound. Britannia Mine Museum curator Laura Minta Holland says it is not only a provincial landmark, but a place steeped in history.

“It’s just so impressive when you walk in and it just prompts you to try to imagine what it would have been like when it was a working and operational mill building.” Minta Holland told CTV News. “I really feel it has that sense of a cathedral almost, and sometimes we refer to it as a kind of cathedral of engineering.”

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Osisko cofounder Wares praises private equity, scolds debt financiers, nips NIMBYism – by Colin McClelland (Northern Miner – May 16, 2023)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Osisko Metals (TSX: OM; US-OTC: OMZNF) is part of a rising trend tapping private equity to help build projects, but it’s wary of the growing role of “predatory” debt financing.

Appian Capital Advisory, a London-based private equity firm with mining projects valued at US$3.6 billion, is investing $25 million for a quarter of Osisko’s Pine Point zinc-lead mine in the Northwest Territories.

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Glencore signals interest in buying Teck’s coal business even as it pursues the whole Canadian mining company – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – May 16,2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The bosses of Canada’s Teck Resources Ltd. and Switzerland’s Glencore PLC have used a mining conference to present starkly different views on how Teck could create value and whether Ottawa would approve a proposed merger of the two companies.

At the same time, Glencore opened the door to buying Teck’s substantial metallurgical coal operations, signalling an interest in owning even a piece of a company attempting an uncertain corporate overhaul.

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A northern solution to copper shortage – by Shane Lasley (North of 60 Mining News – May 11, 2023)

https://www.miningnewsnorth.com/

The North of 60 Mining area hosts billions of pounds of copper ready to be delivered to a world craving this metal in sky-high demand for wiring the electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure that would enable the envisioned low-carbon future. Whether enough of these copper-rich projects are developed in time to circumvent a short circuit of the clean energy transition remains to be seen.

Global Market analysts such as S&P Global have predicted that copper production will need to double by 2035 to meet demands driven by global net-zero emission goals. This means that even if every current copper mine was still producing at today’s capacity in 12 years, enough new mines would need to come online to match that production – both highly unlikely scenarios.

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Glencore bid for Teck faces stiff Canuck rules, pride as mining M&A activity triples – by Colin McClelland (Northern Miner – May 11, 2023)

https://www.northernminer.com/

Glencore (LSE: GLEN) faces an uphill battle to buy Teck Resources (TSX: TECK.A/TECK.B; NYSE: TECK) because of Canadian nationalism despite surging mergers and acquisitions in the critical minerals space.

The mining industry’s M&A activity is up 283% to US$66 billion so far this year compared with the same period last year while dealmaking across all industries is down 38% to US$1.2 trillion, according to Bloomberg data presented on Wednesday at the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration’s eighth annual Trends in Mining Finance Conference in New York.

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Column: Copper’s anticipated supply surplus is proving elusive – by Andy Home (Reuters – May 10, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, May 10 (Reuters) – The global copper market is facing another year of supply deficit, according to the International Copper Study Group (ICSG). The Group’s April forecast is for a supply shortfall of 114,000 tonnes this year after a 431,000-tonne deficit in 2022.

When the ICSG statistical committee last met in October, it expected a shift to surplus this year to the tune of 155,000 tonnes. That market turnaround is now only seen materialising next year. The calculated difference between small deficit and small surplus is a marginal one in the context of a 26-million-tonne global market but the change of view captures two key strands in the current copper narrative.

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Consortium led by mining veteran Pierre Lassonde is proposing buying Teck’s coal business in bid to thwart Glencore – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – May 10, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A consortium led by Canadian mining veteran Pierre Lassonde is proposing to buy Teck Resources Ltd.’s coal operations, a deal that could stop Swiss giant Glencore PLC in its tracks, and offer a made-in-Canada solution that may be palatable to Ottawa.

Mr. Lassonde is co-founder and chair emeritus of Franco-Nevada Corp., the world’s biggest mining streaming and royalty firm. He has also been an outspoken critic against the incursion of foreign mining companies into Canada over the past two decades.

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Red metal rising: Argentina sets lofty sights on global copper top 10 – by Lucila Sigal (Reuters – May 8, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

BUENOS AIRES, May 8 (Reuters) – Argentina, known better for its Malbec than its mining, has its sights set on becoming a top ten copper producer by 2030, with an investor friendly stance luring global players like Glencore (GLEN.L) and Lundin Mining (LUN.TO) to its mountainous north.

The South American country has a pipeline of copper projects that could produce 793,000 tonnes a year by the end of the decade, government forecasts show, well below neighboring No. 1 producer Chile but near big players like Australia and Zambia.

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OPINION: Ottawa may bluster but there is no ‘Canadian’ solution for Teck – that ship has sailed – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – March 6, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Any unfriendly international takeover attempt is like a long, exhausting soccer game as executive teams and their hired guns, shareholders, the quick-buck hedge funds, and politicians all try to manoeuvre for the best positions. The process can take months as each of the players look for weaknesses to exploit, hurl insults at each other and place their bets.

And so it is with Teck Resources, Canada’s last big diversified mining company. In its effort to fend off mighty Glencore of Switzerland, Teck has in effect recruited allies in the form of the federal and provincial governments while it scrambles to concoct a value-creation plan that is not dead on arrival.

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Why is Ottawa playing games in the takeover fight for Teck Resources and the future of the critical minerals we need? – by David Olive (Toronto Star – May 4, 2023)

https://www.thestar.com/

The federal government’s likely blocking of the foreign takeover of Teck Resources, writes David Olive, would achieve nothing for Canada’s goal to increase production of the materials we need to decarbonize our economy.

There is a growing likelihood that Ottawa will block the foreign takeover of Teck Resources Ltd., a diversified mining company based in Vancouver. But that would achieve nothing for Canada in our goal to increase production of critical minerals to decarbonize economies in the fight against climate change.

What is required of Canada is that we extract more critical minerals from the ground. And that we build more processing facilities — refineries, smelters, and the like — to turn those minerals into the refined components that go into smartphones, electric vehicles (EVs), wind turbines, solar panels, and upgraded electricity grids.

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UPDATE 1-Rio Tinto under ‘immense pressure’ to develop US copper project (Reuters – May 4, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE, May 4 (Reuters) – Rio Tinto Ltd is under “immense pressure” from the U.S. government to develop its Resolution copper project in the United States, given the copper it holds accounts for a quarter of all U.S. reserves, its chair Dominic Barton said on Thursday.

Copper is vital for the transition to green energy but the project in Arizona is opposed by all of the state’s tribal councils, including the San Carlos Apache because it would destroy a heritage site of religious significance.

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Teck needs to figure out how to transition out of the coal business – by Eugene Ellmen (Corporate Knights – May 3, 2023)

https://www.corporateknights.com/

It has been an intense few weeks for Teck Resources, as Canada’s largest diversified mining company faces an existential fork in the road. With a takeover lurking in the wings, the company must now figure out how to transition out of its 20-million-tonnes-a-year coal business.

The proposed takeover of Vancouver-based Teck, a company recognized as a sustainability leader, by Swiss mining giant Glencore PLC, a company saddled with a history of human rights, bribery and environmental problems, has attracted the attention of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The government is looking at the deal “very, very carefully,” he told Bloomberg last week.

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OPINION: Who owns Teck – its shareholders, or the government? – by Andrew Coyne (Globe and Mail – May 3, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

It’s unclear what the next step in the Glencore-Teck takeover saga will be. Teck’s shareholders having lately rejected the company’s plan to split itself in two – a plan designed to stave off the Swiss-based Glencore’s advances – Glencore has vowed to come back with another offer, even richer than the US$23-billion bid the board has twice rejected. Only this time it says it will take its pitch directly to the shareholders.

That’s nice. Only the company appears to be under the mistaken impression that Teck’s shareholders are in fact the company’s owners. Whatever it may say on their share certificates, they are not. The government of Canada is.

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Copper Mine Flashes Warning of ‘Huge Crisis’ for World Supply – by James Fernyhough (Bloomberg News – May 2, 2023)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The transition to clean energy depends on copper, but a vast Mongolian mining project offers a glimpse of the metal’s troubled future.

Accompanied by tinny taped music and overall-clad workers, Rio Tinto Group executives and Mongolian officials gathered a kilometer beneath the freezing Gobi Desert earlier this year to open one of the world’s richest underground copper mines. It was a celebration four decades in the making.

Oyu Tolgoi, in southern Mongolia just north of the Chinese border, is key to Rio’s efforts to move beyond its dependence on iron ore and expand in copper, the metal that underpins the clean energy transition. It’s also a vast deposit whose corporate, political and technical vicissitudes offer a glimpse of the red metal’s troubled future.

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