Teck Resources Ltd. says it has completed the sale of its remaining 77 per cent interest in its steelmaking coal business to Glencore plc.
The news comes as no surprise following the announcement last week by the federal government that it had approved the sale of the operation to the Swiss commodities giant.
Vancouver-based Teck received US$7.3 billion from Glencore for its coal business, which it sought to off-load in order to focus more on critical minerals and the energy transition.
Glencore had initially pursued a $25-billion hostile takeover attempt for all of Teck, a move that sparked economic nationalism concerns in Canada.
Industry Minister Fran莽ois-Philippe Champagne said last week the green light for the sale of Teck鈥檚 coal business comes with 鈥渟trict鈥� conditions and represents a 鈥渕uch narrower鈥� transaction than Glencore鈥檚 takeover attempt last year.
After receiving the thumbs-up from Ottawa, Teck said at the time that completing the transaction would give the company 鈥渁 pathway to increase copper production by a further 30 per cent as early as 2028.鈥�
鈥淭his transaction marks a new era for Teck as a company focused entirely on providing metals that are essential to global development and the energy transition,鈥� said the company鈥檚 president and CEO Jonathan Price in a statement last week.
Teck previously closed the sale of a minority stake in the steelmaking coal business to Japan鈥檚 Nippon Steel Corp. and South Korea鈥檚 Posco.
The company has four near-term copper projects that will cost an estimated $4.7 billion to complete. It鈥檚 also working to ramp up production at its roughly US$8.7 billion Quebrada Blanca Phase 2 project in Chile.
As part of the deal, Glencore has committed to establishing and maintaining a Vancouver head office for Elk Valley Resources for at least 10 years, along with regional offices in Calgary and Sparwood, B.C., Champagne said last week.
The majority of Elk Valley Resources鈥� directors and two-thirds of its executives or senior managers must be Canadian for the same duration.
News that Teck was exploring a sale of its coal division first broke in 2021.
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