PTo make your fortune, ditch the diamonds and follow the copper. The ancient metal, as old as agriculture, is worth gold today. And it’s much easier to find. All the little thugs are currently discovering a passion for telecommunications networks, which they plunder to resell the metal on the black market. They are not the only ones to succumb to this new fever caused by the energy transition.
The world’s leading mining group, the Australian BHP, announced this Thursday, April 25, that it was proposing a merger with its competitor, the South African Anglo American, owner of the diamond king De Beers, but also of immense copper mines in Chile. This would in fact be a pure and simple absorption, since BHP is five times larger than its rival in market capitalization. The transaction, in securities, would amount to 42 billion dollars (39 billion euros), according to the Bloomberg agency.
The matter is far from being in the bag for the Australian. Her prey very moderately appreciated the proposition, which she considers “unsolicited and highly conditional”. But miners are big beasts who know how to deal with both the demands of a very long time and the need to quickly seize opportunities. It takes seventeen years on average to open a mine, but a few weeks to pounce on weakened prey. Anglo American’s stock price fell 12% in one year, following a downward revision of its production forecasts.
BHP is not interested in diamonds or platinum, for which Anglo American is famous, but in its copper mines. The Swiss commodities broker, Trafigura, recently posed the equation in The world : consumption is expected to increase by nearly 30% over the next ten years, mainly to support the electrification of energy (cars, networks), whereas, for ten years, demand has already exceeded supply. According to the IEA, 80 new mines would have to be opened within two years to respond to this call for air. We are far from it. BHP, for its part, chose to buy its competitors. His compatriot Oz Minerals in 2023 for $6.4 billion, and now BHP.
It remains for him to overcome the reluctance of South Africa, whose pension fund is the largest shareholder of Anglo American, and those of the competition authorities, who see this group taking over nearly 10% of world production. , and finally a possible outbidding of competitors, such as its great rival Rio Tinto. The copper rush promises to be bloody.