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Copper

Freeport CEO Open to All Options, Even Sale, After Grasberg – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – October 8, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

With a resolution to Freeport-McMoRan Inc.’s Indonesian saga in sight, Chief Executive Officer Richard Adkerson says any strategic move is now possible, including acquisitions, partnerships, or even a sale of the entire company.

Freeport is planning to remain an independent entity, Adkerson said Thursday in a wide-ranging, 90-minute phone interview. “But if an opportunity for us to sell to another company would arise, and that would be good for our shareholders, you would see us trying to get the best deal we can get as opposed to being a company where management is trying to protect itself.”

Freeport has been engrossed in intensive negotiations with Indonesia to cede majority control of its flagship Grasberg mine to local interests for almost two years. With a package of agreements close to being sealed, “the future, strategically for us, is going to be wide open,” Adkerson said. “We have enormous resources.”

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Is the Reign of Glencore’s Billionaire Copper King Near Its End? – by Jack Faerchy (Bloomberg News – October 9, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Aristotelis Mistakidis is one of the world’s most powerful commodity traders. For nearly 20 years, the brash, hyperactive Greek known to everyone simply as “Telis” has ruled over the global copper market, buying and selling enough of the red metal to supply every factory in the U.S. twice over.

Today, the man who built Glencore’s reputation in copper is facing tough questions about how he did it. Mistakidis, who until recently ran both copper trading and mining, is under intense pressure after a string of investigations, problems and legal headaches.

The U.S. Department of Justice is probing Glencore’s dealings in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world. Canadian regulators are also investigating accounting irregularities at copper mines where Mistakidis was a director.

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Zambia Tax Hikes to `Break Economy’s Back,’ Mines Lobby Says – by Taonga Clifford Mitimingi and Matthew Hill (October 4, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Zambia’s plan to increase mining royalties will break the back of the economy in Africa’s second-biggest copper producer and make investment there impossible, an industry lobby group said.

Responding to plans Finance Minister Margaret Mwanakatwe unveiled last week to increase royalties by 1.5 percentage points while introducing additional charges for metal exports and imports, the Zambia Chamber of Mines said the measures would “lead to famine.”

“Let us be clear, these higher tax rates will not result in more tax revenue,” Nathan Chishimba, president of the lobby group, said Wednesday in an emailed statement. “As industry production shrinks through the impact, there will be less jobs, less taxes and as a result there will be less in the government’s bank account for many years to come.”

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LMEWEEK-Macro disquiet drowns out signs of base metals shortages – by Eric Onstad (Reuters U.K. – October 4, 2018)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON, Oct 4 (Reuters) – Uncertainty about how metals demand will be hit by trade wars, rising U.S. interest rates and a slowdown in China is weighing on industrial metals prices, submerging signals pointing to potential shortages.

The index of copper and five other top industrial metals traded on the London Metal Exchange has shed 11 percent this year while prices for the worst-performing metals, zinc and lead, have tumbled by about a fifth.

But as speculators pile on bearish positions and investors flee from the metals market during tit-for-tat trade volleys, signs of metals shortfalls are building.

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BHP sees major copper demand boost from China’s widening belt and road – by Barbara Lewis (Reuters U.S. – October 3, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – China’s overseas expansion will spread over land that is home to more than half the world’s population, potentially boosting copper use by 1.6 million tonnes, or roughly 7 percent of annual demand, major miner BHP said on Thursday.

BHP has analysed the impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a network of overseas construction projects, on commodity demand on the basis of a database it constantly updates.

It said China’s overseas expansion plan covered 115 partners across Eurasia, parts of Africa, Latin American and Oceania, up from 68 countries or regions it cited in a previous blog post in September last year.

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Vale Is Close to Approving $1 Billion Copper Expansion – by R.T. Watson (Bloomberg News – October 3, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Vale SA, flush with cash from its booming iron-ore sales to China, is expected to approve a $1 billion expansion of a Brazilian copper mine later this month, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Building out the Salobo mine — known as the Salobo 3 project — would likely take about three years to complete and add about 50,000 tons to capacity at the mine in Para state, the person said, asking to remain anonymous because the talks are confidential. Salobo currently produces about 200,000 tons of copper a year.

The plan by the world’s largest iron-ore producer to invest in the new copper project comes as global copper stockpiles fall, while there has been growing consensus the copper market will be in deficit next year.

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Peru’s Mining Investment Boom Leaves Political Woes Behind – by Laura Millan Lombrana and John Quigley (Bloomberg News – October 2, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Peru’s ability to post eight consecutive months of investment growth is calming fears that political woes would derail mining activity in the world’s second-largest producer of copper, zinc and silver.

Mining investment in Peru jumped 6.3 percent in August compared with last year, to $395 million, according to the latest report by the- Energy and Mines Ministry. Investment in development and preparation, the first stages in building a mine, reached $63 million, the highest in more than four years.

“Peru has a natural geological potential that other countries don’t,” said Ricardo Labo, a former deputy mines minister, in an interview. “But this political noise distracts from change; you can’t have ministers and vice-ministers distracted when they should be focused on vital issues like cutting back permitting.”

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Ivanhoe Mines soars on third major copper discovery in Congo – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – October 1, 2018)

http://www.mining.com/

Shares in Canadian miner Ivanhoe Mines (TSX:IVN) jumped Monday after it announced a significant new discovery of high-grade copper on its 100%-owned Western Foreland asset, west of the Kamoa-Kakula mining licence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The find, named Makoko, is Ivanhoe’s third major copper discovery in the DRC, as well as the first of multiple high-potential target areas identified by the company’s exploration team to be tested by drilling.

The company’s shares climbed in Toronto as much as 8.4 percent to C$2.98 on the news at 9:35 am, and were still trading 5.82% higher at C$2.91 by 11:49 am local time.

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Rio Tinto pushes Grasberg deal closure into 2019 – by Peter Ker (Australian Financial Review – September 30, 2018)

https://www.afr.com/

Rio Tinto could be waiting up to nine months for the proceeds of its Grasberg copper divestment to flow through, despite clearing a significant hurdle on the transaction in recent days.

Indonesian state-owned company PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (Inalum) signed binding agreements with Rio and its partner Freeport McMoran to reshape the ownership structure of the mine, under a deal that will give Inalum majority ownership and Rio $US3.5 billion in cash proceeds.

But the “binding” deals were said to be conditional on further approvals, including from anti-trust regulators in several nations.

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Freeport Seals Pact With Indonesia on Giant Grasberg Mine – by Eko Listiyorini and Viriya Singgih (Bloomberg News – September 27, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Freeport-McMoRan Inc. and Indonesia signed a binding landmark agreement for the U.S. miner to hand over majority control of the giant Grasberg copper and gold mine to a local state-owned firm, in the country’s biggest ever divestment by a foreign resources company.

Freeport Chief Executive Officer Richard Adkerson and PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium President Director Budi Gunadi Sadikin signed a divestment deal and two other pacts in Jakarta on Thursday. The transfer of majority shares to Asahan Aluminium will happen once the company makes a payment of $3.85 billion to Rio Tinto Group and Freeport, Sadikin said.

The U.S. producer will continue to operate the mine under the agreement, which culminates more than a year of talks. The accord will allow Indonesia to issue a special mining license for Freeport to run the world’s second-largest copper mine through 2041. Freeport and Asahan Aluminium, known as Inalum, will complete the transaction before the year-end, Sadikin said.

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Commentary: Copper’s robust dynamics clash with futures gloom – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – September 26, 2018)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – You’ve got to feel sorry for Doctor Copper. He and his base metal friends find themselves on the front line of the escalating trade stand-off between the United States and China.

London copper has clawed its way back from August’s 13-month low of $5,773 per tonne but at a current $6,280 is still 15 percent off its June peak of $7,348. With the exception of that other front-line commodity, soybeans, the rest of the commodities universe seems to be relatively unaffected.

The oil market is positively bubbling away, while iron ore and steel prices remain surprisingly resilient to the prospect of a full-blown trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. There is, however, logic to the punishment meted out to Doctor Copper.

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First Quantum Falls as Panama Court Casts Uncertainty on Project – by Natalie Obiko Pearson (Bloomberg News – September 25, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Canadian miner First Quantum Minerals Ltd. headed for a one-week low after a ruling by Panama’s Supreme Court cast uncertainty over a major copper mine it’s developing in the central American country.

Local media in Panama reported that the court ruled on Monday that Law 9 — used to approve a mining concession contract between the state and Minera Petaquilla in February 1997 — was unconstitutional.

Minera Petaquilla, now known as Minera Panama SA, is majority-owned by Vancouver-based First Quantum. Company’s filings show it obtained the concession rights for the Cobre Panama project in 1997 under that law.

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Russian giant copper project in talks to raise $1.25 billion – by Polina Devitt and Diana Asonova (Reuters U.S. – September 17, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A company owned by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov is in talks to raise $1.25 billion from Russian banks by the start of 2019 to build a massive mining and metallurgical plant at Russia’s biggest untapped copper deposit, its chairman said.

Large greenfield projects in Russia’s energy and mining sector slowed after Russia was hit by Western sanctions four years ago, limiting the economy’s access to foreign finance, but some of the bigger projects are now being revived with home-grown financing.

Usmanov’s Baikal Mining Company, operator of the Udokan copper deposit, is betting on strong global appetite for the metal, which many expect to be in demand for use in electric vehicles.

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Demand for renewable energy drives the need for copper – by Erin Thorburn (AZ Big Media.com – September 18, 2018)

AX Big Media.com

Next time you make a call on your cell phone, drive a car and kick up the AC, remember to thank copper. In the words of Jonathan Ward, spokesperson for Resolution Copper, “Without copper, we would all be living in the Stone Age.”

Thanks to copper mining, we remain happily embedded in the 21st Century, but that’s not all we should be thankful for. In our small portion of the desert, Arizona mining has a huge impact on our state, on the Southwest and on the rest of the world.

From modern luxuries to renewable energy to the integrity of our national security, copper is one of Arizona’s most valuable export industries and commodities.

Copper is king in sustainable development

From the time it was discovered in 8700 B.C., copper was the reigning, sole metal known to man for almost five millennia.

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Imperial Metals explores sale of company amid financial restructuring – by Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – September 18, 2018)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Troubled junior copper producer Imperial Metals Corp. has kicked off a strategic review that may result in the sale of the company as it struggles under a mountain of debt.

In a Monday release, Imperial Metals said it will also consider selling assets piecemeal, entering into joint ventures or recapitalizing the company.

The Vancouver-based company, backed by well-known energy executive Murray Edwards, says it has taken a number of steps that give it financial breathing room in the short term. With a market capitalization of just $134-million, it has a debt load of roughly $857-million and a cash balance of $16-million as of the end of the second quarter.

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