Romanian copper draws Indian and Turkish investors
The company with the biggest copper reserves in Romania, Cupru
Min Abrud, which will be privatised in the next few months, has
received new letters of intent from companies in India and Turkey,
after February saw investors from Austria, Australia, Switzerland
and Canada, as well as Cupru Min employees join the race to
privatise the company.
The interest for the company is increasingly high after it managed
to return to profit last year, with a 19 million-lei (4.5
million-euro) result, following a significant increase in the price
of copper, which recently reached an all-time high of 10,000
dollars/tonne.
Cupru Min holds mining licences for Roşia Poieni copper quarry from
which around 900,000 tonnes of copper can be extracted, accounting
for around 60% of Romania's copper reserves. The Roşia Poieni
deposits are valued at around 6 billion euros if one considers the
price at which copper is currently traded on the London Stock
Exchange, of around 9,500 dollars/tonne.
Cupru Min Abrud last year produced around 5,000 tonnes of copper
and increased its turnover 5.7 times, to 115.3 million lei (27.4
million euros).
However, the negative results in the previous years, which led to a
significant amount of debt to the state budget piling up, has
prompted IMF representatives to ask the state to privatise the
company, which also needs significant investments to make the
company more efficient, given its use of outdated technologies.