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Rio Tinto and Glencore held talks for potential mining mega-merger

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Global mining giants, Rio Tinto and Glencore, have reportedly been in talks over a potential merger of their businesses — creating what would be the world’s largest mining deal.

According sources of both Bloomberg and Reuters, the companies held early-stage talks about a deal, but the discussions are no longer active.

Rio Tinto is the world’s second-biggest miner, with a market value of about US$103 billion at the close of trading on January 16, and Glencore was valued at about US$55 billion — across iron ore, aluminium, copper, coal, nickel and zinc. The combined value of the two companies would be larger than BHP’s US$126 billion market value.

The move comes after BHP proposed a US$39 billion takeover of Anglo American last year, in what would have been the largest mining deal on record and create the world’s largest copper producer. Anglo America rejected the offer, but as we suggested in our analysis at the time, this was just the start.

Merger and acquisitions (M&A) across the mining industry were valued at US$121 billion in 2023, up 75% on 2022, according to GlobalData, and the focus was on battery metals.

The concern for many of the mining companies is meeting the expected demand for critical minerals needed for AI data centers and net zero, in the face of steep competition from China.

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Any mergers or acquisitions will be too late to stop any supply deficit in the short or even medium-term if demand continues to rise, driven by AI and net-zero targets.

But it means the industry is getting ready.

Our recent analysis:

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The Oregon Group is an investment research team focused on critical minerals, mining, energy and geopolitics.

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