Copper Company?

[steve fleming]

from mergermarket....


Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group [Tong Ling You Se Jing Shu], a listed Chinese copper maker, is seeking opportunities to acquire copper mines in Australia, Canada and Chile, a company source said.

Tongling is eyeing copper mines with no less than one million tons in reserves. A green field mine as well as grades of less than 0.5% would not be considered. It should also be near infrastructure such as a harbor or convenient transportation facilities, according to the source.

Tongling has approximately CNY 1.8bn (USD 263m) cash on hand. The budget used for acquisitions will be around USD 1bn. It will raise funds from the China Development Bank or team up with other Chinese state-backed miners to carry out the acquisition if the target value is beyond the budget.

A mining strategist said that Tongling may have a tough time acquiring copper mines in Canada and Australia. He explained that in the wake of the Rio Tinto and Chinalco deal, Australia will not be interested in letting a Chinese company make a bid for a sizable copper mine in the country.

An unnamed Australian analyst said that the larger targets such as ASX listed miner PanAust, which has copper operations, would not be viable for Tongling as its operations are located in Thailand and Laos. Smaller miners such as the ASX listed Exco Resources are more likely, he said. Exco has a market cap of AUD 69.76m (USD 57.34m).

Queensland was given as an area of interest as there would be none of the issues facing Chinese investors such as those experienced by Chinalco with Oz Mineral's Prominent Hill project due to the fact the projects are not near important Government sites, the analyst stated. Anything Tongling looked at however, would not be that developed, he added.

One possible target is North Queensland Metals which has been previously been reported on this news service to be looking to divest its copper assets.

The ASX listed energy player Lodestone Energy, which has copper prospects in Queensland was also contacted, with MD Jeff Jamieson saying Lodestone would consider approaches from Tongling for joint ventures on its copper prospects. Lodestone has a market cap of AUD 25.71m (USD 21.13m).

The Tongling source was unfamiliar with these potential target companies and declined to give any comment on them before seriously checking them out.

Tongling is one of the three largest copper makers in China. China has a lack of copper mines. In 2008 around 90% of copper ores Tongling refined were imported from overseas. Tongling generated revenues of about CNY 37.3bn (USD 5.4bn) and has a market cap of around CNY 33bn (USD 4.8bn).
By Yumin Wang in Shanghai, Page Robinson in New York and Cole Latimer in Sydney

[Dr_Who]

from mergermarket....



A mining strategist said that Tongling may have a tough time acquiring copper mines in Canada and Australia. He explained that in the wake of the Rio Tinto and Chinalco deal, Australia will not be interested in letting a Chinese company make a bid for a sizable copper mine in the country.


By Yumin Wang in Shanghai, Page Robinson in New York and Cole Latimer in Sydney

Who is this mickey mouse strategist that is full of shiat?

Make a bid for IRN at $1.50 and it will go to the Chinese. Well, not entirely, Xstrata may come in and trump them with a higher bid.

Rumours flying about possible copper manipulation. I tend to disagree. But here is the article from the NBR.

http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/copper-...rumours-106569

[Hoop]

Copper prices doubled..yeah but so has Zinc Nickel and Lead see for yourselves at Kitco historical charts.

I don't think people fully understand how much copper is used in the world and the demand for more to be dug out of the ground as recycling can't keep up.

One example
China's population may not be averaging middle class yet, but I bet a large proportion of the population has a cellphone now.
This is modern day accessory that our young kids can't survive without and has to be renewed every couple of years to stay in fashion..... did you know 7% of a cellphone weight is pure copper so imagine multiplying this weight by a billion times .....

[POSSUM THE CAT]

Yankiwi since when can you transmit power over fibre optic cable

[POSSUM THE CAT]

Yankiwi In most places telephone lines have not been around for about 20 years

[STRAT]

Well they're hanging outside my house in Rotorua, 2k from the cbd, and a population 60K ish?

How does your phone connect with the outside world at your place Possum, morse code spotlights or smoke signals? I bet they plug into the wall somewhere.

under ground

[macduffy]

I've been dithering over whether to top up my OZL or to buy some PNA.

Think I'll sit pat for the present.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=a6EtKUzeuRFc

[Dr_Who]

Go copper go! $282!!!

No stopping this bull resource. Hope everyone is still long on copper resources, cos I am. China cant get enough of it and now the north Americans and Euro is buying.

[biker]

From today's (6th) Sun Herald (NSW) Investor supplement:
"PanAust has glittering prospects
"Analysts are upbeat on this mining and exploration company.
"This copper and gold mining and exploration company was established in its current form more than a decade ago but started looking to South East Asia towards the end of the 1990's. It acquired controlling intersts in a project in Thailand in 1999 and its cornerstone project in Laos in 2001.
"It is Brisbane headquartered but all its operations are offshore.
"Although it reported a loss for the past halfyear, most analysts researching the stock are optimistic, with seven out of 12 rating it as a buy.
"Its cornerstone Phu Kham Copper-Gold operation in Laos was brought on stream in April last year and started commercial production of coper-gold oxide in June, 2008.
"It has just completed its first 12 months of operation and had no lost time injuries (LTI) - a total of 6.5 million hours with no injury that would have prevented any employee working.
"That's rather remarkable considering the Australian open-cut metalliferous mining industry performance of 1.8 LTIs per million man hours during 2007-08.
"And although it reported an interim net profit after tax (NPAT) loss of $US15.8million for the first half ended June, that included $US19.1million in one-off costs associated with a share-option expense and a redemption fee for the repayment of a debt facility with Goldman Sach JBWere.
"The company is also about to receive a $216 million investment from Chinese Guangdong Rising Assets Management after the Chinese Govt. approved its investment in the company. That, along with an equity raising earlier this year, has helped knock its gearing level to less than 20 per cent, not a bad thing in the current environment.
"And if the copper price continues to rise, admittedly off a rather low base, its outlook may be even rosier.
"UBS is so optimistic it has made it its preferred Australian copper stock.
"UBS write in a report 'this is due to its solid operating performance and options for expansions at Phu Kham and the potential development of the Ban Houayxai gold-silver project'
"The Ban Houayxai project is in the south-west of the Phu Bia Contract Area in Laos and had a pre-feasability study completed on it in September last year, which revealed the potential to produce 100,000oz to 130,000 oz of gold and 700,000 to 800,000oz a year of silver over a minimum period of six years.
"Although currently trading at about 40cents, UBS has a price target of 59 cents on the stoock. RBS has a price target of 47 cents but Citigroup's is 42cents, due to a more conservative commodity price outlook.
"Advantages:
Improving copper price
New project potential
Major Chinese investor
Disadvantages:
Volatility of commodity prices
Exchange rate
Country risk
Verdict
Although commodity prices are volatile and PanAust has just one major project online, it has identified other opportunities that
could eventually turn it into a much bigger player."

[Dr_Who]

Gold and copper going mental.