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Gold/Mining/Energy : Copper - analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: goldsnow who wrote (19)	3/8/1998 6:47:00 PM
From: Ron Everest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2131

Thanks for the news. It would seem that if Russia, China and possibly other countries with deficient Hydro and Telephone infastructures can pick up economically then the use of CU will rise dramatically. They will want to increasingly infill their telephone and hydro infastructure. Also, consumers will want to participate in modern times, internet and all. With the lower prices many CU mines are shutting down. This could mean that for an extended time low cost procucers will keep the supply coming at lower yields. With new finding methods costs to find mines is dropping, thus, we may be seeing a new paridigm for CU and many other metals. The winners will be the lower cost producers, in time. Graph of approx one month's CU and NI prices: nickelalloy.com

To: goldsnow who wrote (19)	3/10/1998 9:13:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 2131

NEW YORK, March 9 (Reuters) - Alcoa's (NYSE:AA) stunning move to snap up rival Alumax Inc (NYSE:AMX) will generate takeover speculation in base metal stocks to boost the sector's share prices, analysts said on Monday. The $3.8 billion stock-and-cash merger sends a message to shareholders that base metals companies are significantly undervalued, which should trigger some merger speculation, said Dan Roling, a metals equity analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co (NYSE:MER). This spillover into the rest of the base metals sector was partly why copper giant Phelps Dodge Corp (NYSE:PD) gained 2-1/4 a share on Monday to close at 67-3/8 in New York Stock Exchange trading, despite copper prices being down on the day, Roling said. Roling said Alcoa has grabbed a bargain by paying only 12.5 times estimated 1998 earnings for Alumax, while the broader market is trading at 22 times earnings. Alcoa closed off 3/16 Monday at 71-7/16 in trade on the New York Stock Exchange. Alumax gained 10-5/16 to end Monday at 47 on the NYSE. Another copper producer, ASARCO Inc (NYSE:AR), gained 9/16 to close Monday at 24-3/8 in trade on the NYSE. In constrast, on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the broader market closed lower. The DJIA ended down 2.25 at 8567.14. The Nasdaq, heavily weighted in technology stocks, fell 28.33 points, or 1.62 percent, to settle Monday at 1725.16. And the S&P500 index ended off 3.39 points at 1052.30. After Alcoa's move to grab Alumax, one of the big U.S. aluminum producers, others in the sector may now be more vulnerable to takeover attempts, other analysts said. "Reynolds is ripe for takeover," said Jim Southwood, an analyst at Commodity Metal Management. "They have been shedding their assets, and they are a nothing company at the moment." Reynolds Metals closed up 7/16 at 63 on Monday in NYSE trade. Another leading U.S. aluminum producer, Kaiser Aluminum (NYSE:KLU) gained 5/8 to end at 9-7/8 on the NYSE. A Prudential Securities analyst said the merger of two of the lowest-cost producers will put pressure on other players in the aluminum market. A takeover of any of the remaining U.S. aluminum players probably would come from an outside company, the Prudential analyst said. Wall Street welcomed the merger. "It's 'win-win.' It's good for you guys, and it's good for the industry," Bear Stearns' non-ferrous metals analyst Anthony Rizzuto told Alcoa officials during a teleconference Monday. Southwood, of Commodity Metals Management, said the merger will strengthen Alcoa's position in extrusions and the foundry sector, but will have little impact on the bigger picture. "It's a smart thing, but as far as having any effect on the global industry, I don't think it has any effect at all," Southwood said. "Capacity is capacity, and I don't see this as anti-consumer." Paul O'Neill, Alcoa's chief executive officer, was quick to dismiss any suggestions that an enlarged company would be able to bump up aluminum prices. Once the two companies have merged, their total production capacity would represent less than 10 percent of global capacity, when Russia and China are included, O'Neill told analysts on Monday. O'Neill also told analysts earlier Monday he was confident the U.S. Justice Department would allow the merger to go forward. Copyright 1998, Reuters News Service

To: goldsnow who wrote (19)	3/12/1998 9:26:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 2131

News Alert from Reuters via Quote.com Topic: (NYSE:PD) Phelps Dodge Corp, (TSE:NOR) Noranda Inc., Quote.com News Item #5737386 Headline: Weak copper price worries Zambia consortium- Avmin ====================================================================== JOHANNESBURG, March 12 (Reuters) - South Africa's Avmin Ltd (JOH:AVMJ) said on Thursday the weak copper price was a worry for the Kafue consortium which is conducting a study to seal two Zambian mine purchases, but the investigation was moving along steadily. London traders have speculated that recent weakness in the copper market had prompted the consortium to delay closing its acquisition last year of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines' (SBF:ZCC) mineral-rich Nkana/Nchanga mines. The consortium, comprising Avmin, U.S.-based Phelps Dodge Corp (NYSE:PD), Canada's Noranda Mining and Exploration Inc (TSE:NOR) and the Commonwealth Development Corp, has been conducting a due diligence since its successful bid in November. "Obviously (the copper price) is a concern. We are watching it very carefully, and part of the whole process is that we are looking at numbers with new copper prices," Avmin spokesman Julian Gwillim told Reuters. "The whole consortium is working together to come to a final solution," he added. The benchmark London Metal Exchange price has fallen more than 30 percent in the past nine months on growing supply from the United States and South America and weak Asian demand. There has also been speculation that the Zambian government is getting impatient to put to bed the sale of its copper crown jewels, but Avmin denied any knowledge of this. "That has not been indicated to us. It is a very complex process and both parties, Kafue and the Zambians, have a tremendous amount of work to get through," Gwillim said. A Phelps Dodge executive said on Wednesday that the copper price created concerns for the project in the future, but there were other obstacles affecting the close of the mines purchase. The mines account for about half of Zambia's copper output. "It's not the copper price, per se, that's causing the delay," Phelps Dodge vice president and treasurer Thomas Foster told Reuters. "Certainly it doesn't help and it makes the project more problematic going forward, but there's still a number of issues to be resolved that are unrelated to the copper price." He said Phelps Dodge was seeking indemnity of certain environmental liabilities associated with the project and the establishment of a town site also had to be settled. Nkana and Nchanga produced 171,666 tonnes of copper and 4,252 tonnes of cobalt in the financial year ended March 1997. No price tag for the purchase has been made public, but mining analysts have speculated it was in the region of $250 million, topped up by further commitments of hundreds of millions of dollars to jack up production. newsroom@reuters.co.za)) Copyright 1998, Reuters News Service