Nobody Can Agree What Copper Is Worth — And That Just Saved Vale’s Throne

For almost twenty years, one man dreamed of building the biggest mining company on Earth. This is part of The Rio Times’ daily coverage of Brazil affairs and Latin American financial news.

Ivan Glasenberg, the billionaire who turned Swiss commodity trader Glencore into a global powerhouse, first pitched merging with Anglo-Australian rival Rio Tinto before the 2008 financial crisis. He tried again in 2014. His successor Gary Nagle tried in late 2024. Each time, the answer was no.

On February 5, for the fourth time, the answer was no again — but this round came closer than any before. Rio Tinto and Glencore had spent weeks in serious due diligence, with negotiating teams flying to Glencore’s Swiss headquarters and both sides engaging banks including JPMorgan, Evercore, Macquarie, and Citi.

According to people involved, talks ran until 3:00 PM London time before Rio’s CEO Simon Trott walked away at the UK regulatory deadline. The sticking point was straightforward: Rio wanted to run the show, keeping both chairman and CEO roles.

Glencore wanted 40% ownership and argued the offer massively undervalued its copper mines — assets producing 952,000 tonnes in 2024, with plans to nearly double that to 1.6 million tonnes by 2035. Neither side blinked. Markets punished Glencore instantly, its shares dropping 10.8%, while Rio Tinto hit a record high in Sydney.

Six thousand miles away in Rio de Janeiro, Vale had reason to exhale. The Brazilian miner — whose shares carry the heaviest weight on the Ibovespa index — just reclaimed its position as the world’s largest iron ore producer after a brutal half-decade recovery.

The Mariana dam collapse in 2015 and the Brumadinho disaster in 2019 killed hundreds, triggered billions in reparations, and forced production down to 300 million tonnes by 2020. Last year, output hit 336 million tonnes, the highest since 2018. A merged Rio-Glencore would have been four times Vale’s size.

But this story is really about copper. The metal is essential to electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines, power grids, and the AI data centers consuming ever more electricity worldwide.

S&P Global projects demand will jump from 28 million tonnes today to 42 million by 2040 — yet mining output is expected to peak around 2030, opening a potential 10-million-tonne annual gap.

Every major miner is scrambling to secure supply: Anglo American and Canada’s Teck Resources have already approved a $53 billion copper-focused merger awaiting final regulatory clearance.

The failed Rio-Glencore deal leaves that supply problem unsolved. Under UK rules, Rio cannot approach Glencore again for six months. Both companies say they will pursue independent growth strategies.

But the math has not changed, and as Nagle himself put it, this remains “the most obvious deal in mining.” Few believe the fifth attempt is a matter of if — only when.

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