Canadian metals and mining company Teck Resources Ltd for plans of selling its entire 80% stake in Zafranal copper assets in Peru has hired Barclays, as the miner company is speeding up the efforts to leave advanced projects to better concentrate on its massive expansion strategy in Chile, according to a Wednesday report by Reuters, citing two banking sources.
Chief Executive Officer of Tech, Don Lindsay has said that company is expected to be selling its stake or at least sought a partner for Zafranal project.
The company, which was formerly known as Teck Cominco until late 2008, and its advisors are feeling out interest among mining companies that are already been operating in Peru for the copper-gold project of Zafranal, which is likely to be fetching up to $500 million for the company, one of the sources told Reuters, adding that the project, however, would still needed to be invested with an additional amount of more than $1 billion before coming into fully operational.
A representative from Teck declined to comment on the report saying company is in practice of not commenting on speculations, while representatives from Barclays as well as Japan’s Mitsubishi Materials Corp, which is the owner of remaining 20% stakes in Zafranal, were not immediately available to comment.
Teck, which is Canada’s largest diversified resources company and was formed in 2001 from the amalgamation of Teck and Cominco, last year said that it would expand $4.7 billion Quebrada Blanca phase two (QB2) copper project in Chile, a plan that will make it one of the world’s top five producing mines.
Vancouver-based Teck is targeting 2021 for the first production from that Chilean mine and is expecting the production to be reaching to 316,000 tonnes of copper equivalent per year for the first five full years of mine life.