BHP bets billions on Chile mines to face global copper crunch
BHP detailed to investors this week plans to spend $10.7 billion to $14.7 billion within about 10 years.
Glencore Plc, Mercuria Energy Group and Trafigura Group are buying copper from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s state miner, which is marketing metal from joint-venture projects for the first time.
The three commodity trading houses successfully bid to buy copper from CMOC Group Ltd.’s giant Tenke Fungurume mine, according to people familiar with the matter.
As competition for copper deals intensifies, Gecamines could create more opportunities for traders if the company sells its share of output from other mines in Congo, the world’s No. 2 producer of the metal. The joint ventures, in which the state firm is a minority shareholder, previously sold all their production.
Glencore, Trafigura, Mercuria and CMOC declined to comment. Gecamines didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Bloomberg reported in July that state-owned Gecamines, which owns 20% of Tenke, was assessing offers for 90,000 tons from the project. That’s equivalent to a fifth of the mine’s 2023 copper production.
Mercuria – which hired Trafigura’s former co-head of metals Kostas Bintas as part of a push into metals trading – will get 50% of the Tenke copper tendered by Gecamines, the people said. Glencore, which owns two mines in Congo, and Trafigura will split the rest, they said.
Tenke is one of Congo’s biggest mines, exporting 361,000 tons of copper and 23,000 tons of cobalt last year, according to government data. China’s CMOC is expanding output of both metals at the operation.
Gecamines has also requested bids for its share of cobalt, which is extracted as a byproduct of copper mining, from Tenke, Bloomberg reported two months ago. That sale has not been completed yet, one of the people said.
Congo accounted for about three-quarters of the world’s cobalt production last year. Prices of the battery metal have slumped more than 70% since early 2022 as rising output – particularly from CMOC’s two mines in the central African country – outstripped demand.
(By William Clowes, Jack Farchy and Archie Hunter)
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