BHP Billiton Gains After Report China Plans to Acquire Stake

April 9 (Bloomberg) -- BHP Billiton Ltd., the world's biggest mining company, rose the most in more than 10 weeks in Sydney trading after The Australian newspaper reported that China wants to buy a stake.

China is in the early stages of planning to buy a bigger holding in BHP than the 9 percent of Rio Tinto Group acquired by state-owned Aluminum Corp. of China, or Chinalco, and Alcoa Inc., the newspaper said today, citing unidentified people in Beijing.

China, the fastest- growing major economy, has been hurt by a threefold gain in commodity prices since 2002. Chinalco bought a 9 percent stake in Rio in February, hindering BHP's plan to acquire the London-based company and create the biggest supplier of aluminum and coal and control a third of the iron ore market.

``China would be hurting badly, fearing they will be shelling out a lot more for commodities,'' Peter Arden, a Melbourne-based mining analyst at Ord Minnett Ltd., an affiliate of JPMorgan Chase & Co., said today. ``Buying a piece of BHP helps offset that.''

BHP rose as much as A$2.06, or 5.1 percent, to A$42.46 on the Australian Stock Exchange. That's its biggest gain since Jan. 25. The stock traded at A$42.16 at 10:12 a.m. Sydney time.

BHP spokeswoman Emma Meade said she was not able to comment on market rumors.

China's steel industry is the world's largest consumer of iron ore, which Melbourne-based BHP mines in Western Australia. BHP made a $156 billion hostile bid for Rio in February to create a combination that would vie with Brazil's Cia. Vale do Rio Doce as the largest producer of the steelmaking material.

Iron Ore

The price of iron ore has risen to a record for a sixth straight year. In February, Vale won a 71 percent increase for ore from its Carajas mine from Nippon Steel Corp., JFE Holdings Inc., and Posco, Asia's three largest steelmakers.

The raw material accounts for 13 percent of BHP's fiscal 2007 sales. Coking coal, another material used to make steel, has tripled. China is also the largest user of aluminum, which accounted for 15 percent of the company's revenue, and coal.

Rio and BHP, the second and third-largest iron-ore exporters, are still in talks with Asian steelmakers for 2008 contracts. The steel companies are resisting Rio's demand for a so-called ``freight premium'' to reflect the lower cost for Asian customers of shipping ore from Australia rather than Brazil.

去年在BHP還$50多時建議中國ZF買。這次看來有可能是真的。
不過花街謠言多，總是在敏感時拉出謠言。不管怎樣。我HOLD。