Company has three business divisions: Mining, Transport and Water, being the first of them the most important. Antofagasta plc is one of the largest international copper producing companies in the industry. Its activities are mainly concentrated in Chile where it owns and operates three copper mines, Los Pelambres, El Tesoro and Michilla, with a total production of 498 thousand tonnes in 2004, at an average cash cost of 24.4 c/lb. The Groups mining division, Antofagasta Minerals, is also actively involved in exploration particularly in Chile and Peru. The transport division operates an extensive rail network servicing the important mining region of northern Chile, which is centred on the port of Antofagasta. The water division operates a concession for the distribution of water in this region.

SALES PER ACTIVITY (Data as of 31/12/2005)

Copper mining: 94%
Rail transport:   4%
Water:             2%

SHANGHAI: Although most commodity traders thought the recent slump in copper prices was only short-term, they were still surprised at a sudden and fierce rebound this week.

On Tuesday, copper futures prices in London shot up 11 per cent to US$8,460 per ton as international traders and speculators rushed to cover their short positions. It is thought the surge was the reason why the Shanghai copper futures market was virtually paralyzed.

When the city's futures exchange began trading yesterday, the opening price for copper futures contracts hit the price rise ceiling of 4 per cent allowed under the exchange's rules and stayed there throughout the entire session.

Copper for delivery in August opened at 73,850 yuan (US$9,230) a ton yesterday, up 3,200 yuan (US$400) from Tuesday's close.

As a result, trading almost stopped. Only 190 tons of the metal were contracted for delivery in three months compared to an average turnover in excess of 265,000 tons in recent months.

Traders on the Shanghai exchange, which has become the second largest market in the world for copper futures, said they expected prices to hit the ceiling again at opening today.

The rebound ended a short-term slump that had taken place in global markets over recent weeks.

Commodity traders attributed the surge of copper future prices to the price rebound of the metal at the London Metal Exchange.

"The rebound in China is basically caused by the change on the London market, which we are closely linked to," Wu Bowen, an analyst with Shanghai-based Jin Peng Futures, said.

"But the burgeoning Chinese economy has driven a roaring foreign commodities market, which in turn drags up commodity prices in our country too," he added.

Other reasons include rising fuel prices in China and an excessive correction of commodities after their prices soared to record highs earlier this month.

China increased the prices of petroleum, diesel and aviation fuel by about 10 per cent, the largest increases since 2003.

An official with the State Development and Reform Commission said on Tuesday night it had increased fuel prices because China's current prices are far below those in the international arena. This, the official said, has reduced the profits of Chinese oil refineries.

Analysts warned the fall in copper prices was just short-term and wouldn't alter the rising price trend, caused, they said, by surging demand from China's commercial sector and buying by speculators.

Yang Fan, a trader at the Shanghai-headquartered Dalu Futures, forecast that futures would continue to open at higher rates today.

The surge also set price trends for other commodities such as rubber and aluminium; their price increases reached ceilings set by the exchange as well.

Source: China Daily

AFX


LONDON (AFX) - Chilean copper miner Antofagasta PLC reported a 35 pct rise in first quarter earnings, reflecting strong copper prices which offset the decline in production and molybdenum prices.

Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation in the three months to March rose to 523 mln usd from 386 mln last time.

Turnover grew 40 pct to 748.6 mln usd as average copper prices increased to 224.3 cents per pound from 148.3 cents last time.

Average prices for molybdenum prices, a by-product of copper mining used as a hardening agent for steel and cast iron, however, fell to 23 usd per pound from 31.5 usd.

Copper sales during the quarter fell to 108,100 tonnes from 111,600 tonnes, owing to lower output at Los Pelambres and ore grades and recoveries at El Tesoro mines.

Molybdenum sales also declined to 2,000 tonnes from 2,100 tonnes.

Total charges for the group's commodity hedging programme totaled 37.8 mln usd in the three-month period.

Elsewhere, Antofagasta said its transport and water divisions 'continued to perform strongly', with turnover above the quarterly average for 2005.



monicca.egoy@afxnews.com

Thursday June 8, 04:15 PM
Broker tips

LONDON (ShareCast) - Chilean copper miner Antofagasta (LSE: ANTO.L - news) has been upped to "buy" from "neutral" at UBS as part of a wider note on the mining sector.

The Swiss broker noted that the miner has fallen some 23% in the last three weeks, as it raised commodity price forecasts and EPS estimates. UBS added that the likelihood of further M&A action has increased.

so are you brave enough to dive in this morning given that most prices will have ben marked up quite a bit even before the market opens?

Daily Telegraph. By Malcolm Moore in Rome (Filed: 17/06/2006)


Record copper prices power China's blackmarket demand for hot metal


The recent record price of copper has led to a spate of robberies in Italy and Western Europe, as gangs of thieves seek to sell the metal to China on the black market.

In the past six months at least 10 major copper robberies have been foiled by Italian investigators. The latest was on Tuesday, when Naples police uncovered a criminal ring that had stolen 175 tonnes of copper wiring, worth as much as 1m (682,000), and were about to ship it to China.

Five men were arrested, and a further 17 are under investigation. Police added that the network of copper smugglers included companies at the port in Salerno, as well as shipping and container businesses.

Although the price of copper has fallen in the past few weeks, the commodity has spiked over the past two-and-a-half years thanks to an incessant thirst for copper wiring from Chinese manufacturers.

The global stockpile of copper has been depleted to only three days of current production, and since January 2004 the price of the metal has risen from just over $2,000 (1,080) a tonne to a recent peak of almost $9,000. On the black market, a tonne of copper now sells for as much as $5,000.

Police in Naples found thieves were stealing copper wiring from the construction site of a high-speed rail link between Rome and Naples. Since much of Italy's rail network is electrified, thieves have persistently targeted railway stations.

Two men were recently arrested in the southern city of Catanzaro for stripping wire from a railway station. In the Piedmont and the Aosta Valley, police have arrested 11 people in the past month. The value of the copper they had stolen was about 3m. In March, police in Brescia recovered a similar amount of copper in nine anti-fraud operations.

"The phenomenon was restricted to a few places, but with the rise in price, it is much more widespread," said Claudio Di Cani, head of the Italian Association of Non-Ferrous Metal Producers and Smelters.

Copper gangs are also at work in Germany, France, Sweden and Ireland. In France, repair work on the TGV rail lines is now under police guard. In Scotland last week, 40,000 of copper was stolen from a building site at Edinburgh University.

Church roofs have been targeted, and in Kansas, the Apostolic Church of Jesus had the copper stolen from its air-conditioning system.

Copper Rises for 3rd Day on Speculation Metal Demand Won't Slow

June 16 (Bloomberg) -- Copper rose for the third straight day on speculation that a decline in prices this month, the biggest since May 1999, was exaggerated because economic growth may sustain metals demand.

Copper in New York has plunged more than 12 percent this month, leading a drop in industrial metals as central banks raised interest rates to rein in inflation. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, who on June 5 pledged to fight U.S. inflation, said yesterday that the world's biggest economy can withstand rising energy costs.

``What Bernanke said helped the mood'' of copper traders by signaling the Fed's inflation fighting won't kill economic growth, said Edward Meir, a commodity analyst at Man Financial Ltd. in Darien, Connecticut. ``His whole tone was a little bit more muted.''

Copper for September delivery rose 5.35 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $3.185 a pound at 12:36 p.m. on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. A close at that price would leave copper down 2.5 percent for the week. The metal reached a record $4.04 on May 11. A futures contract is an obligation to sell or to buy a commodity at a fixed price for a specific delivery date.

On the London Metal Exchange, copper for delivery in three months rose $25, or 0.4 percent, to $7,020 a metric ton, after rising as much as 1.9 percent. Prices have more than doubled in the past year.

Reduced Inventories

Inventory in Comex-monitored warehouses fell 8.3 percent to 7,929 short tons yesterday, the biggest decline since April 3. The New York Mercantile Exchange said yesterday it will reduce the limit of outstanding copper contracts traders can hold in the spot month by 30 percent to 175 contracts as warehouse inventory fell to almost a five-month low.

The change, beginning with the June 2006 contract, will be effective at the close of business today. Stockpiles in LME warehouses have fallen 85 percent in the past three years.

``The fundamentals remain very, very strong,'' said James Koppel, managing director at SG Commodities Group, a New York- based trading unit of France's Societe Generale SA. ``You take a look at the LME stock and they are still very, very low.''

Consumer confidence in the U.S., the world's second-largest copper user after China, unexpectedly rose for the first time in three months in June. The University of Michigan's preliminary index of consumer sentiment rose to 82.4 this month from the final May reading of 79.1.

The measure has averaged 88.1 since monthly data were first compiled in 1978. Economists expected the Michigan gauge to fall to 79, based on the median of 60 forecasts in a Bloomberg survey.

I am fully expecting a rise in share price of ANTO as it is very cheap and has dropped too far.

Fez copied a post from some strange source who stated there were only 3 days of copper stockpiled throughout the world ..... and CHP will 100p tomorrow too! ...... For sure miners have taken an absolute hammering over the last month, and now may be good buying opportunity ...... However, just because sp is much cheaper than it was doe not, per se, make the stock cheap ...... For myself, I am far from convinced that the indices are back on a sustainable upward track, so be careful and nimble.

good point cynic. lots of differering pinions at the moment with up and down market. everyone seems to have a different view but to me ANTO is cheap because it has dropped more than other miners recently whilst fundamentals remain rock solid.

cynic: have put in source of my earlier article (see post 6) - it was the Daily Telegraph.

sorry; so you did ..... but still reckon it's codswallop ..... but as i said befoe, that does not mean FAGS are not now good value, or similarly KAZ and the like .... just tread very carefully

Antofagasta PLC
19 June 2006

Antofagasta plc

4 for 1 Bonus Issue of Ordinary Shares

London, 19 June 2006

Following shareholder approval at the Annual General Meeting and Class Meetings
on 14 June 2006, Antofagasta plc (the 'Company') confirms that it has issued, by
way of a bonus issue, four new ordinary shares of 5p each for every one ordinary
share held by shareholders of the Company at the close of business on Friday 16
June 2006. Each new ordinary share will carry the same rights as an existing
ordinary share. Following this issue, the Company has 985,856,695 ordinary
shares in issue.

As no similar bonus issue has taken place in respect of the 5% cumulative
preference shares in the capital of the Company, the rights of each preference
share have been amended so that each preference share now carries 100 votes on a
poll at any general meeting of the Company. This amendment maintains the voting
rights of each preference share as a proportion of the total votes entitled to
be exercised at a general meeting.

After the bonus issue ANTO is now comparatively nearly 4% higher than when it closed Friday night.

Thanks Fez ..... couldn't work out the maths! ..... nevertheless, "tread carefully" stiull applies not withstanding that FTSE has opened firmly and Dow is also looking good - so far

Harry .... please read dai's up-dated and comprehensive review of of copper and other metal prices

remember the old saying "PRICE HAS MEMORY"

never heard that one!

Cheers cynic. Talk about volatility!! "up and down like a yo-yo" doesn't even begin to tell the tale!!! Need to tread very carefully until things settle down.

so a couple of weeks has now passed and normality has returned to the markets, at least for the time being ..... with commodities now back on upward track, I contemplated which mining stock to lose money on and, with some reluctance, rejected POG (Hambro) as a really good gold play and have plumped for ANTO in preference to KAZ

Posted chart post share consolidation.Trading bottom of range.Buy recommendations today with target price 470p.Strong demand for copper isn't going away.Growth India and China.Every new home needs copper.

Watch for breakout when it comes above 400p.Several attempt today.