Glencore names date for stake closure

Hong Kong-listed CST Mining Group announced last month it had sold its CST Resources unit to Glencore.

CST Resources indirectly owns 70 per cent of Marcobre, the sole owner of the Mina Justa project, which has a resource of 413.3 million tonnes with 0.79 per cent copper.

Glencore said that Mina Justa complemented the company’s existing mining operations in Peru.

The industry is seeing a round of copper consolidation, the latest example of which being China’s Jinchuan’s beating Brazil’s Vale with its bid for South African-listed miner Metorex earlier this month.

Analysts at Liberum said yesterday that Glencore would be paying $0.54 per pound of copper reserve against $0.94 per pound in Jinchuan’s bid for Metorex.

“While the 43 per cent discount reflects the earlier development status of the project, the deal nevertheless looks to be attractively priced for Glencore and further underscores Glencore’s aspirations to realise rapid growth through organic and opportunistic acquisitive growth,” Liberum analysts said.

n Hong Kong stocks were seen edging higher yesterday after suffering their worst weekly drop since March last week as investors look ahead to corporate results and resolutions to debt problems in the euro zone and the United States.