Interesting article in the Financial Times today re Rio Tinto's increased focus on copper in coming years. Increased revenue in copper is expected to offset lower earnings from iron ore. Article also makes mention that dwindling reserves of copper is prompting an increase in M&A activity. In The U.S, Rio owns 55% of Resolution mining- (BHP 45%) - copper project 100 km from Phoenix in Arizona-- but is beset with legal challenges from environmentalists and native Americans - Apache Stronghold. Congress has approved a land swap of other environmentally sensitive lands to address their concerns. That land swap is now the subject of a further legal challenge. This underlines that Washington is pushing hard to allow more mining of critical minerals such as copper. Hopefully NWC will not have to confront similar legal challenges to get this project going.( I don't think that will be the case) The long-term fundamentals are compelling and eventually we will see a serious re-rating of the company.
NWC Price at posting:
3.4¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
