Copper load of mega-mergers

The West Australian01-19

Mining mergers are back in style. Rio Tinto, the industry’s fourth-most valuable company, has confirmed it is in talks to acquire Glencore, a Swiss competitor, and thus create the world’s biggest ...

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Rio Tinto, the industry’s fourth-most valuable company, has confirmed it is in talks to acquire Glencore, a Swiss competitor, and thus create the world’s biggest ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://thewest.com.au/business/the-economist/the-economist-the-race-for-copper-has-brought-a-wave-of-mining-mega-mergers-c-21351205\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n","source":"thewest_stock","html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Copper load of mega-mergers</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nCopper load of mega-mergers\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2026-01-19 02:59 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://thewest.com.au/business/the-economist/the-economist-the-race-for-copper-has-brought-a-wave-of-mining-mega-mergers-c-21351205><strong>The West Australian</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Mining mergers are back in style. Rio Tinto, the industry’s fourth-most valuable company, has confirmed it is in talks to acquire Glencore, a Swiss competitor, and thus create the world’s biggest ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://thewest.com.au/business/the-economist/the-economist-the-race-for-copper-has-brought-a-wave-of-mining-mega-mergers-c-21351205\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"BK4535","symbol_name":"淡马锡持仓","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://thewest.com.au/business/the-economist/the-economist-the-race-for-copper-has-brought-a-wave-of-mining-mega-mergers-c-21351205","article_id":"2604909001","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":["https://images.thewest.com.au/publication/C-21351205/03a642d9b83ab067518b0dbf0f562480f3b1dc92.jpg"],"rights":{"source":"thewest_stock","url":"https://thewest.com.au/business/the-economist/the-economist-the-race-for-copper-has-brought-a-wave-of-mining-mega-mergers-c-21351205","rn_cache_url":null,"directOrigin":true},"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2604909001","pubTimestamp":1768762761,"columns":[],"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"thewest_stock","name":"The West Australian"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"THE ECONOMIST: Mining mergers are back in style, but consolidation will not ease the shortage.","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"thewest.com.au","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"BK4535":"淡马锡持仓","BK4585":"ETF&股票定投概念","BK4588":"碎股","COPX":"铜矿ETF-Global X"},"translate_title":"大型合并的铜负载","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"COPX":1.5},"content_text":"Mining mergers are back in style. Rio Tinto, the industry’s fourth-most valuable company, has confirmed it is in talks to acquire Glencore, a Swiss competitor, and thus create the world’s biggest miner, worth around $US220 billion ($329b) at current valuations.Just a few months ago AngloAmerican, a British miner, and Teck Resources, a Canadian firm, said that they would merge. The total value of tie-ups among miners last year reached $US94b, the most in a decade.Investors’ reactions to news of the Rio-Glencore deal have been mixed. Glencore’s share price rose by 10 per cent after the announcement on January 8th, and has continued to climb. Rio’s fell by 3 per cent, though it has since recovered. That reaction partly reflects lingering questions over what Rio would do with Glencore’s coal assets (Rio stopped mining coal in 2018) or its trading business.But it also highlights investors’ continued wariness over profligate spending by miners. Many shareholders have not forgotten the industry’s write-downs of more than $50 billion in 2015, when a slowdown in China brought the last commodity supercycle to an end. Yet for miners with the right assets, the good times seem set to continue.The latest wave of mining mergers comes amid an intensifying race to secure access to the critical minerals needed for technologies from electric vehicles and batteries to the data centres that power artificial-intelligence models.In the past year China has wielded its control over rare earths to force America into a trade truce, prompting Western policymakers to make greater efforts to break its chokehold. Yet it is another critical mineral, copper, that has drawn the most interest from miners. Its price has risen by nearly 50 per cent over the past year.The shares of miners that focus mostly on the metal—including Antofagasta, Freeport-McMoRan and Southern Copper—have outperformed those of diversified giants including BHP and Rio.The rise in copper’s price shows no sign of slowing. S&P Global, an information provider, reckons that demand will increase from 28m tonnes last year to 42m tonnes in 2040. At the same time supply is constrained. Many existing copper mines are ageing, making it harder (and costlier) to get ore out of the ground.In South America, source of most of the world’s copper, every 100 tonnes of raw ore yielded about 1.3 tonnes of copper two decades ago — a “head grade” of 1.3 per cent. That has since fallen to 0.7 per cent. Building a new mine can take close to 20 years. Activist strikes, seismic activity and mudslides have also disrupted production.Camera IconSource: LSEG Workspace. Credit: The EconomistAnalysts at Deutsche Bank, a German lender, estimate that supply from mines, which fell in 2025, will be roughly flat this year. “The supply issue isn’t a quick fix,” says Shaun Usmar, who runs the base-metals subsidiary of Vale, a Brazilian mining company.That is why miners are turning to acquisitions to secure copper, the production of which remains highly fragmented. A combined Rio-Glencore would dig up about 1.6m tonnes of the metal a year, more than any other company but still only about 7 per cent of total mine output.In 2024 Anglo sped up efforts to rid itself of diamond, platinum and other assets as part of its defence against an unfriendly takeover attempt by BHP. Its merger with Teck, which sold its coal assets to Glencore in 2024, is intended to create a leading global copper producer.Whether these deals result in an increase in total copper production is another matter. “The size of the pie doesn’t change, only the slice,” says Tristan Pascall, boss of First Quantum Minerals, another copper miner, adding that fresh investment is still needed. By consolidating, companies may obtain the financial firepower they need to expand existing mines and develop new ones.Yet there is a risk that they must first spend years digesting their acquisitions. Permit delays and other red tape will also slow down new supply.Even if governments simplify approvals, as is happening in America, bottlenecks in processing and refining copper — a dirty, energy-intensive process that is even less popular than mining — will remain. Buyers of the metal should not expect relief from rising prices soon.World PoliticsCommentsWhy US tariff backdown is ‘critical’ for AustraliaAndrew Greene","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"merge","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"tenantId":"TBGLOBAL","deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.36.0","shortVersion":"4.36.0","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2604909001","isCrawlerRequest":true}