LONDON, May 9, 2026, 19:03 BST
- Rio Tinto is weighing more exposure to McEwen Copper’s Los Azules project in Argentina.
- The move would sharpen its push into copper after failed Glencore talks.
- London trading is closed for the weekend, leaving investors to price the report on Monday.
Rio Tinto is evaluating McEwen Copper’s Los Azules project in Argentina as the miner considers lifting its 17.2% stake in one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper deposits, two industry sources said. Rio owns the stake through Nuton LLC, its copper technology venture, and declined to comment; Michael Meding, managing director of McEwen Copper, said the companies were in “fruitful conversations” and that Nuton “makes so much sense.” Reuters
The timing matters. Rio is trying to build a deeper copper pipeline after walking away from Glencore merger talks, while miners compete for deposits that can feed data centres, power grids and clean-energy projects. Copper is the metal used heavily in wiring and electrical equipment, and new mines are slow to permit, finance and build.
Rio Tinto’s London shares were shown at 7,704 pence, up 0.26%, with Bloomberg listing the market as closed on its May 8 quote. The next trading read on the report comes when London reopens.
Los Azules sits in San Juan province, close to the Chilean border. McEwen’s 2025 feasibility study put the project’s after-tax net present value — a measure of future cash flows discounted to today’s money — at $2.9 billion and projected average output of 204,800 tonnes of copper cathode a year in the first five years.
The mine plan also matters for Rio because of Nuton. The technology uses bio-leaching, a process that relies on naturally occurring bacteria to help extract copper from sulphide ore, and McEwen’s materials pitch it as a way to reduce energy use and avoid tailings dams.
Rio has already been telling investors it wants growth but not loose spending. Chief Executive Simon Trott told shareholders on May 6 that “Every dollar must deliver value,” and said the group was targeting the release of $5 billion to $10 billion of cash from its asset base while keeping copper, iron ore, aluminium and lithium at the centre of the portfolio. SEC
The competitive backdrop is blunt. Rio’s Glencore talks collapsed in February after months of negotiations over a tie-up that would have created a mining group worth more than $200 billion; the deal failed as copper scale became a bigger issue across the sector.
BHP is chasing the same investor logic. Its CFO Vandita Pant said this week that AI demand had made copper exposure more valuable, calling copper a “bottleneck” as investors look upstream rather than trying to pick individual technology winners. Reuters
Argentina is also trying to turn that demand into hard currency. Mining Minister Luis Lucero said the country could export $20.6 billion of copper and $12.1 billion of lithium in 10 years, helped by RIGI, a large-investment incentive scheme designed to offer more stable terms for big projects.
McEwen Copper is not short of strategic names. Nuton holds 17.2% of the company and Stellantis owns 18.3%, with the carmaker seeking access to raw materials used in electric-vehicle supply chains.
But a bigger Rio stake is not assured. Los Azules still needs financing, and Meding said in March he was aiming for a $4 billion package, including a possible $300 million IPO toward the end of the year; construction and first output remain years away.
For Rio, Los Azules would be a cleaner, smaller bet than a Glencore transaction. It would add copper optionality without buying a whole trading house and coal-heavy portfolio. The hard part now is not the strategy. It is price, funding and whether the project can meet the timetable.
