CST Mining sells 70% stake in Peru copper mine for $505 million

CST Mining is selling its 70% stake in the Mina Justa copper project in Peru for US$505 million.

Hong Kong-listed CST Mining (Stock Code:985) which owns the Lady Annie copper mine in Queensland, said today it has entered into a share purchase agreement with a subsidiary of Minsur S.A., the world’s fourth largest tin producer and Peru’s largest tin miner by tonnage.

The price is a 6% premium on last year’s offer by commodities giant Glencore to buy the stake off CST Mining for $475 million- a deal that Glencore walked away from.

Reporting on today’s news, the Wall Street Journal (sub required) said selling the 400-million-tonne asset will allow CST to concentrate on its Lady Annie operation which aims to produce 30,000 tonnes of red metal this year.

CST Mining has as its executive vice chairman Owen Hegarty, who as WSJ points out, “famously built Oxiana from a mining hopeful in 1995 to a multi-billion company on the ASX.” Oxiana later combined with Zinifex for $12 billion to create OZ Minerals in 2008.