Anglo American chief says tech giants show ‘deep interest’ in mining stakes

The chief executive of Anglo American said the London-listed group had held talks with technology companies that were interested in buying equity stakes in the miner as a way of securing a supply of metals.

Discussions were “absolutely being had”, Duncan Wanblad told the FT’s Metals and Mining Summit on Thursday, adding that their logic was: “Can we secure long-term offtake directly or are there equity positions that we can take to secure a stake in that supply going forward.”

No such equity stakes had yet been taken, but “there were certainly deep expressions of interest in potentially trying to do that”, Wanblad said. “Given the scarcity issue that we’ve been speaking about, a lot of people are looking for ways to secure supply,” he added.

Tech companies use large amounts of copper, aluminium and steel, as well as a range of rare earth metals, to manufacture their products and in the data centres that power artificial intelligence.

They are also increasingly interested in understanding where those metals come from in order to ensure the resilience of their supply chains amid an escalating global race for resources, mining executives say.

Speaking to the FT in September, Cory Kos, vice-president of investor relations at uranium producer Cameco, said the companies such as Amazon and Microsoft were looking to buy physical uranium for the next-generation nuclear reactors that would power data centres.

“We’ve got a few term sheets out. Nobody’s bought anything yet,” he said, but “big names” were looking at doing so.

BHP chief financial officer Vandita Pant also said at the FT summit in London: “We do talk to the hyperscalers.”

The company was working with Amazon on helping it secure lower-carbon copper, although equity investments were a “different issue”, she said.

“If you’re a customer, what you’re looking for is the ability to rely on very reliable supply,” she added.

Amazon this year agreed to buy copper from Rio Tinto’s Nuton venture for its US data centres.

Wanblad would not be drawn on what Chinese regulators were looking for in order to approve its $50bn merger with Canada’s Teck Resources.

Anglo was also likely to shutter its nickel business in Brazil if the EU did not approve the planned sale of the assets to China’s MMG, he told the conference.