When Chinese stock market regulations forced Glencore to divest itself of some part of its holdings to continue to be quoted in China, the result was the sale of Peru’s largest copper project, Las Bambas in Apurimac, to a Chinese consortium. The latter inherited a situation of serious disquiet over environmental impacts.
This month’s International Seabed Authority meeting could determine the fate of underwater habitats
Stock prices went places we haven’t seen in many years. Teck Resources was down 5.5% on Wednesday, plumbing lows not seen since 2008. Rio Tinto was down 3.9% – roughly speaking near two-year lows. BHP Billiton – down 3.7% – was last so low in 2009. Freeport McMoRan, off 3.5 % was in the same boat. Glencore, down 3.2%, hasn’t been so low, ever, since its merger with Xstrata a few years back. Vale, down 2.3%, was only so low going in 2005. And for Anglo American, off 1.6%, you have to go back to the early 2000s for comparable share pricing.
A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists reviews internal documents related to some of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies, including BP, Chevron, Conoco, ExxonMobil, Peabody Energy, Phillips, and Shell, spanning the course of 27 years – memos that have either been leaked to the public, come to light through lawsuits, or been disclosed through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Glencore has finally announced – after much hinting – that it will sell its stake in the troubled Tampakan copper and gold project it inherited from the merger with Xstrata. Once again another large mining multinational has quit the Philippines under sustained campaigning for local (indigenous) rights and the environment. This move has long been rumoured – partly thanks to the company’s policies of not favouring greenfield copper mining projects – but the fierce local opposition to the project certainly played a part in the decision.
