China makes biggest-ever mine purchase at Las Bambas
03:30, 15 April 2014
BEIJING. KAZINFORM - A Chinese consortium has paid top dollar for Glencore's Las Bambas copper mine in Peru. The price of 4.3 billion euros was towards the top end of analysts' forecasts.
The sale was forced on Glencore by the Chinese as the price to pay for its takeover of Xstrata, which Beijing feared would give the miner an over-dominant position in the copper market, Euronews informs.
The Peruvian mine is due to start production in 2015 at a rate of more than 450,000 tonnes a year for the first five years, and the deal includes China picking up the remaining development costs.