Column: BHP joins the lengthening list of nickel price casualties
Indonesia's nickel production surge is challenging the West's ambitions of diversifying its critical metals supply chains.
Mongolia may share its Tavan Tolgoi coal mining project between a majority of the six bidders shortlisted by the government and ask them to work together, Prime Minister Sukhbaatar Batbold told Bloomberg in an interview adding that the final decision is “very close.”
Coal production in Mongolia doubled last year to become the nation’s top export earner, spurring the government to push through development of one of the world’s biggest unexploited deposits of the mineral. Peabody Energy Corp., a Shenhua Group Corp.-Mitsui & Co. venture, Vale SA, a Russia-Japan-South Korea group, ArcelorMittal, and Xstrata Plc were all shortlisted.
Mongolia is trying to seek a “balance of interests” in its relations with neighbors like Russia and China and Western countries, he said. “This balance has to be kept not by squeezing somebody, but increasing” the opportunities from cooperation, he said.
With a new government-backed CEO, a capex budget and acquisition war chest that dwarfs others, record net profits, a very generous dividend policy, strong fundamentals in its core business, aggressive expansion into high-growth areas and regions – notably potash and Africa – and a stock that looks downright cheap next to its peers, what is not to like about Vale?
After slumping to an 8-month low less than a month ago it now seems investors are finally beginning to warm to the the diversified Brazilian miner. In the month since Murilo Ferreira has been head, the planet’s third most valuable mining company has risen against the other supermajors and outperformed the broader market by 7%.
