Rio to raise $9bn in US bonds for lithium

The world’s biggest iron ore producer Rio Tinto will raise $9bn in US investment-grade bonds as it seeks to fund its recently-closed buyout of Arcadium Lithium, said Reuters on Wednesday.Citing a Rio Tinto announcement, Reuters said the miner was offering the fixed and floating rate debt in eight tranches with terms varying from two years to 40 years.The Anglo-Australian mining giant last week completed its $6.7bn acquisition of the US-based Arcadium Lithium, as it looks to diversify away from iron ore towards critical minerals and battery metals such as lithium.The miner intends to use proceeds from the bond offer for general corporate purposes, including repaying a bridge loan that it had incurred to fund its buyout of Arcadium, said Reuters.Bloomberg News reported last week that Rio had dropped plans to raise as much as $5bn in a share sale following pushback from investors.The supply side of the lithium industry could be in for a period of consolidation as prices for the metal was unlikely to revive in the short term, according to a report by Bloomberg News in February.“A lot of producers are burning cash, so any non-essential spend will remain curtailed,” Wood Mackenzie analyst James Whiteside told the newswire. The lithium price is down more than 80% since 2022.Prices of lithium have failed to rebound from a crash caused by softer electric vehicle demand and oversupply as miners have brought rapid production online since 2022, said Bloomberg News. Several miners have curtailed output, shuttered mines, and paused investment on expansion projects in the past 12 months, it said.The post Rio to raise $9bn in US bonds for lithium appeared first on Miningmx.Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com