Corriente Resources and CRCC-Tongguan Investment Co. announced in late December 2009 the signing of an agreement whereby CRCC-Tongguan will acquire all of Corriente’s outstanding shares for approximately C$679 million in cash. Details of the CRCC-Tongguan offer were scheduled to be mailed to Corriente shareholders by February 1, 2010. The offer remained subject to a minimum tender of 66-2/3% Corriente shares, as well as regulatory approvals.
CRCC-Tongguan is a joint venture of Tongling Nonferrous Metals Group and China Railway Construction Corp. Tongling is China’s second largest copper producer, with integrated production from mining through smelting, refining, and copper products processing. CRCC is one of China’s largest construction enterprises and in 2009 was ranked at 252 among Fortune magazine’s Global 500 companies.
Corriente Resources is based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Its primary asset is a 100% interest in four known copper and copper-gold porphyry deposits within the Corriente copper belt in southeast Ecuador. The deposits are being developed as two mining projects: the Mirador project, which includes the Mirador Norte deposit, and the Panantza-San Carlos project.
