Singapore 12/10/2015 - Glencore has commenced a process to sell its wholly-owned Cobar copper mine in Australia and Lomas Bayas copper mine in Chile, the giant metals miner and trader said on Monday.
The sale process is in response to the company receiving a number of unsolicited expressions of interest for these mines from various potential buyers, it said.
This will allow potential buyers to bid to purchase either one or both of the mines, and may or may not result in a sale, it added. The company will issue an update only in the event a sale is agreed or disclosure is otherwise required, it said.
Cobar is a high-grade underground copper mine and a concentrate plant in central western New South Wales, Australia. The plant throughput is approximately 1.1 million tonnes of ore per year and it produces around 50,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate per year.
Lomas Bayas is a low-cost, open pit copper mine located in the Atacama desert, 120 kilometres north-east of the port of Antofagasta, Chile. The low grade copper ore mined at the facility is processed by heap leaching and converted to copper cathode after processing through the SX-EW plant. The Lomas Bayas operation produces approximately 75,000 tonnes of copper cathode per annum.
Glencore share prices have been battered over the past month following a downturn in global commodity prices, as well as investor worries on the company’s high debt level.
Its share rout had prompted the company to issue a statement on its current financing arrangements last week, saying that its liquidity was above levels reported in its half-year report.
The company had also added that it is taking measures to protect its balance sheet and its credit ratings from downgrades.