RIO Tinto's head of copper says the miner is looking at opportunities to buy juniors struggling to raise funds.
Bret Clayton, chief executive of copper at Rio Tinto said the company was speaking with some of the juniors it is interested in.
“We are scouring opportunities and looking at several. There are a lot of exciting opportunities out there that we are looking at,” he said at a Global Capital conference in London yesterday.
Mr Clayton added that some areas of interest were uranium and nickel.
“We are looking to expand current (uranium) operations that we have,” he said, citing the company’s interest in getting involved with the global climate change initiatives.
Rio’s (ASX: RIO) copper chief also said that nickel was a good business to invest in, adding that Rio Tinto was interested in developing that part of the company's assets.
At the conference, Mr Clayton also said that Chinese demand for commodities, and copper in particular, will not disappear but will moderate in the near term.
“Our basic fundamental view of markets hasn’t changed although we will see moderation in OECD countries and in China,” he said.
In the long term, he said production disruptions will continue especially as underground copper mining is forecast to double.
Mr Clayton said that as open pit mines are transformed to being underground mines there will be problems, adding that Rio Tinto itself has had “teething problems” doing this.
Global demand for copper is forecast to remain high, doubling in the next 15 years with strong growth for commodities overall in China anticipated in that period, Mr Clayton said.
Rio forecasts copper stocks to remain roughly the same as current levels until 2010 but maybe slightly higher.
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