Barrick’s Zaldivar copper mine draws final bids—Teck reportedly still in the running

A final decision on the copper mine in Chile, owned by Barrick Gold, is expected by the first week in August. — Photo courtesy Barrick

According to media reports including Bloomberg News, BHP Billiton (NYSE:BHP), Teck Resources (NYSE:TCK), HudBay Minerals (NYSE:HBM) and China Molybdenum reportedly are among the companies that have submitted final bids for Barrick Gold’s (NYSE:ABX) Zaldivar copper mine in Chile.

A final decision on the mine, valued at more than $2B, is expected by the first week of August, Bloomberg reports, which adds that some of the bidders are interested in the whole asset even though ABX is seeking a buyer for only 50%.

Chile's Zaldivar mine produced 222M lbs. of copper in 2014, and contained proven and probable copper reserves of 5.56B lbs. at year-end 2014.

Zaldívar is located in the Andean Precordillera in Region II of northern Chile, approximately 1,400 kilometers north of Santiago and 175 kilometers southeast of the port city of Antofagasta. The mine lies at an average elevation of 3,000 meters.

Zaldívar is an open-pit, heap-leach copper mine. Pure cathode copper is produced by three stages of crushing and stacking, followed by heap leaching and bacterial activity to remove the copper from the ore. Run-of-mine dump leach material is placed on the old sulphide ore pad and leached.

Copper production in 2015 is expected to be 240-260 million pounds at C1 cash costs of $1.65-$1.95 per pound and C3 fully allocated costs of $2.00-$2.30 per pound.

Source: Seeking Alpha and Barrick