Posco consortium to buy $1-bn stake in ArcelorMittal Mines Canada

A consortium that includes South Korea's Posco is planning to buy a 10-per cent stake worth $1 billion in ArcelorMittal Mines Canada, South Korean financial publication Money Today reported, citing unidentified sources in the merger and acquisition industry.

The report said that Posco will invest between $200-300 million, while the remaining will come from  its partners.

Last month, media reports said that ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaker and fourth-largest iron ore miner, had hired Goldman Sachs and RBC Capital Markets to explore a sale of a minority stake in ArcelorMittal Mines Canada, earlier known as Québec Cartier Mining.

ArcelorMittal Mines is one of Canada's leading suppliers of iron ore to steel markets around the world, generating some 40 per cent of Canada's total production. As both a mining and primary processing company, it operates extensive facilities in Quebec.

It operates two large open-pit mines, one in Mont-Wright, the largest in North America, and one in Fire Lake.

At Mont-Wright, the mining complex includes a concentrator, massive workshops and an automated concentrate train loading system. The site is linked by company rail to the Port-Cartier industrial complex, which comprises the pellet plant, storage areas and port facilities for shipping.