"Natural resources companies with a pipeline of, say, five projects in five different countries are now likely to build just two or three of those. Thus, executives have the power to cherry pick which combination of country and project offers the best returns."
Peter Koven at the National Post looks at the Vancouver-based DeepGreen Resources, a private company that just signed 50% off-take agreement with mining giant Glencore International.
The three losing bids were all from the US and the deal marks a decisive shift in the commodities trading business away from Chicago and London to Asia.
"It's very difficult to foresee what's going to happen to copper prices, but the market remains strong and should stay that way," Sartain said at a press conference in Chile.
Illegality in the mining sector has deprived state governments of badly needed revenues, threatened the industry with costly and unpredictable shutdowns, and generated political chaos that helped bring down two state governments in 2011 and 2012.
