Canadian copper producers Lundin and Inmet in a $9.1bn merger deal

Canadian base metal miners, Lundin Mining and Inmet Mining yesterday agreed to a merger of equals to create a C$9 billion ($9.1 billion) copper company Symterra Corp, the latest in a string of mining deals involving Canadian miners.

The deal comes a day after Cleveland-based Cliffs Natural Resources agreed to buy Toronto-based iron ore miner Consolidated Thompson for $4.95 billion, (See: Cliffs to buy Canada's Consolidated Thompson for $4.95 billion) and steel giant ArcelorMittal and Nunavut Iron Ore Acquisition Inc battle it out for the control of Toronto-based coal miner Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. (See: ArcelorMittal, Nunavut battle for Baffinland's iron ore in Canadian Artic) 

Lundin Mining is a diversified base metals mining company with operations in Portugal, Sweden, Spain and Ireland, producing copper, zinc, lead and nickel.

The Toronto-based miner also holds a development project pipeline which includes expansion projects at its Zinkgruvan and Neves-Corvo mines along with 24.75 per cent stake in Tenke Fungurume copper / cobalt project in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Inmet, also based in Toronto, is a global mining company that produces copper, zinc and gold with interests in four mines, including the Cayeli mine in Turkey, Las Cruces in Spain, Pyhasalmi in Finland and Ok Tedi in Papua New Guinea as well as a 100 per cent interest in the Cobre Panama project in Panama.

Under the merger deal, each Inmet shareholder will receive 3.4918 shares of Symterra, and each Lundin shareholder will receive 0.3333 shares of Symterra for each share held.