China’s State Administration for Market Regulation has made its approval of Anglo American’s US$54 billion acquisition of Teck Resources conditional on formal commitments to provide steady copper concentrate supplies to the country’s smelting industry.
The regulator wants volume guarantees, including sales through trading intermediaries, for Chinese refineries. Those refineries process approximately 60% of the world’s copper cathodes and are facing their worst shortage of concentrate supply in decades.
Anglo American and Teck announced the transaction in 2025. It has since won approval from every other regulator in the jurisdictions where the companies operate, leaving China as the only remaining hurdle.
China’s leverage comes from its role as the primary buyer of unrefined concentrate from Anglo’s operations in Peru and Chile, a position that effectively gives it veto power over the transaction. Most of Anglo’s copper from those countries is sold as unprocessed concentrate to international buyers, including Chinese, Japanese and European smelters.
The proposed combined company would control approximately 5% of global copper supply. Typical antitrust thresholds are 10% to 15%. China’s demands have instead been described as “behavioral remedies”, focused on how the companies supply customers rather than asset sales.
Anglo American and Teck each have marketing teams in China and established relationships with domestic smelters. Anglo American said it was “progressing at a good pace toward completion and working constructively with Chinese regulator SAMR through their structured review process.” Teck Resources declined to comment publicly on the procedure.
Neither company nor the regulator has publicly confirmed fixed concentrate volumes or a binding supply arrangement. The companies expect the deal to close by March 2027, within the 18-month timetable set from its initial announcement.
The review comes as Chinese smelters compete intensely for concentrate, squeezing margins while prices for byproducts including sulfuric acid have declined. Refined copper production growth in China has slowed to its weakest pace since 2000.
Supply has tightened as global smelting capacity has expanded faster than mined copper output. The case illustrates how countries reliant on resources are increasingly using merger reviews to seek supplies of critical raw materials. Executives at Glencore, Anglo American and Rio Tinto have said antitrust scrutiny and national-interest considerations are taking a larger role in assessments of deals involving copper and other strategic minerals.
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