Chile will draw on all options at its disposal, including suing for damages, to defend the interests of state-owned Codelco in its fight with Anglo American, President Sebastián Piñera told the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum on Saturday.
Earlier Codelco’s chief Diego Hernandez said in a press interview the looming legal battle with Anglo could take three to four years to be resolved. The state-owned copper giant is putting together a crack team of lawyers and financial advisers from Chile and New York to fight Anglo’s attempt to block it from exercising an option to buy half of Anglo’s Chilean copper assets for $6 billion. Anglo last week sold 24.5% to Mitsubishi for $5.4 billion.
Reuters Latin America quotes Piñera at the APEC press conference in Honolulu: “Both the Government and Codelco will exercise all the options we have to defend the legitimate interests and legitimate rights of Codelco and all Chileans.”
MINING.com reported over the weekend Anglo American CEO Cynthia Carroll took a last-minute flight to Santiago on Thursday to calm tempers over the sale to Mitsubishi but neither the president, finance minister Felipe Larrain or mining minister Hernan de Solminihac would see her.
She is understood to have contacted all three before announcing the $5.39 billion deal that undermines Codelco’s plan to exercise the 33-year old option to buy 49% of Anglo’s Sur copper complex that includes the newly expanded $2.8 billion Los Bronces mine, the El Soldado mine and smelters. The Mitsubishi transaction values Anglo Sur at $22 billion and Anglo’s stock on Friday closed up 4.8% from levels ahead of the deal. Read more on Carroll’s looming battles which will require all her considerable diplomatic skills.
MINING.com reported in August Chile is proceeding with a massive coal mine on an island in Patagonia near the southern tip of South America despite a high-profile online protest campaign and accusations that billionaire President Pinera’s shareholding in the developer, Copec, constitutes a serious conflict of interest.
A similar campaign last year forced Pinera to reconsider a thermoelectric plant close to another wildlife sanctuary and a poll in August put his approval rating at only 26%, below even that of dictator General Pinochet, who ruled the country for 17 years from 1973. That was in stark contrast to a year ago when he saw his popularity soar after 33 miners were rescued from deep underground after months of effort. Read more about Pinera’s popularity and Chilean protestors.
Piñera hugs Luis Urzua, the last miner out of the rescue hole at the San Jose mine near Copiapo, Chile on October 13, 2010. Image by Hugo Infante/Government of Chile.
Comments
Michael2011416
This is a troublesome, obvious,copper is a very important national resource. It is used as a conductor of heat and electricity, a building material, and a constituent of various metal alloys.The beginning for all copper is to mine sulfide and oxide ores through digging or blasting and then crushing by copper ore concentrator machine.Chile should fight for this.