China Gets Foothold in Africa with $1.3 Billion Minmetals’ Anvil Acquisition
In what is being regarded as the first major African mining play by a Chinese company, China’s Minmetals Resources succeeded Friday in closing its $1.3 billion bid for copper miner Anvil Mining.
Hong Kong-listed Minmetals was offering $8 a share for Anvil, whose key asset is the Kinsevere mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. After the acquisition, Kinsevere is expected to produce 60,000 tonnes of copper cathode a year, from 16,000 tpa in 2010. The mine is expected to have about a 14-year life.
The deal between Minmetals and Anvil nearly unravelled back in November over contractual arrangements between Anvil and DRC state-owned mining body Gecamines, but Gecamines last week confirmed Anvil’s title to the Kinsevere and the Mutoshi copper and cobalt projects were valid and in good standing.
Minmetals had previously offered $6.3 billion for Vancouver-based Equinox Resources, which also mines copper in Africa, but was outbid by Barrick Gold in one of the biggest acquisitions of 2011.
“We bid for Equinox, now we’ve got Anvil, so we’re interested in that part of the world,” Minmetals CEO Andrew Michelmore said Friday. “We like that prospectivity.”
Richard Poplak, reporting in The Daily Maverick, comments on the significance of the Minmetals-Anvil takeover:
It represents Minmetals entry into the African market – and while fellow Chinese miner Jinchuan Group Co. outbid Brazil’s Vale for South Africa-listed Metorex Ltd last year, this is the deal that seems to signal the tipping point. The Chinese have, officially, arrived.
Indeed, Chinese companies have been anxious to secure copper supply anywhere the red metal is plentiful, including the central African copper belt. With the country consuming 40% of the world’s copper’s supply to feed an economy that, while coming off the boil recently, is still projected to grow 6-7% this year, it is not surprising to see Chinese companies in an acquiring mood.
Reuters reported Michelmore saying that Minmetals, a unit of China’as biggest metals trader, will continue to look for deposits of copper, zinc and nickel in Africa, North and South America, parts of Asia and Australia:
“For something close to production in construction phase it’s that $1-$7 billion range,” he said, when asked how much Minmetals could spend on further acquisitions.
Short URL: http://woodlawnpost.com/?p=39780
Posted by WoodlawnPost
on Feb 22 2012. Filed under Base Metals.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
![[Most Recent Quotes from www.kitco.com]](http://www.kitconet.com/images/quotes_special.gif)
Great post! It always amaze me how people can take time to write them. But to be honest maybe you should change the color of the texts? Sorry if I am being rude, just trying to help. Kind regards, Sophia
Very good news – thanks!
I love reading your blog. I’ve you bookmarked your website in order to check out the latest stuff.
Good work:) Thank You for this site
However I do see hybrid sites which have been mini-sites or full scale eCommerce sites, with AdSense in the bottoom of their total pages. This could stop so bad since only 1% – 15% of your readers will either pay for you or fill out a questionnaire.
I’ve said that least 734182 times. SCK was here
Thank you for the sensible critique. Me and my neighbor were just preparing to do a little research on this. We got a grab a book from our local library but I think I learned more clear from this post. I am very glad to see such wonderful info being shared freely out there.
I always was interested in this subject and still am, appreciate it for posting.
I haven’t checked in here for some time since I thought it was getting boring, but the last few posts are good quality so I guess I’ll add you back to my daily bloglist. You deserve it my friend
I truly enjoy looking through on this website , it holds wonderful content .