Mercuria redoubles metals push with $1.2 billion Kazakh deal

Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. is lending $1.2 billion to help fund the buyout of major Kazakh copper producer Kazakhmys, the latest in a breakneck series of deals from the trading house that’s rapidly becoming a major force in metals.

The Kazakh deal shows how Mercuria has carved out a position for itself as the most aggressive of a clutch of companies that have recently entered or returned to metals markets long dominated by rivals Trafigura Group and Glencore Plc. It’s the largest of more than $3.5 billion in metals financing and prepayment deals struck by Mercuria in little over a year since it embarked on its metals drive hiring former Trafigura co-head of metals Kostas Bintas.

Bintas, long a bullish voice on copper, has seized on a market in which supply chain fissures and the threat of US tariffs have helped drive the price of the metal to record highs above $13,000 a ton and boosted profits for traders.

In an interview, he said the Kazakhmys deal was “one of the biggest pre-financing deals ever in metals. Definitely it is the biggest of my career.”

“Historically we’ve seen deals like this more in the energy market, in terms of tenor and quantum,” he said.

Mercuria’s financing facility extends over eight years with the firm getting 200,000 tons of copper cathodes per year for the first four years and a percentage of production thereafter, Bintas said.

The deal highlights how Mercuria is rapidly becoming a key player in Kazakhstan — a country traditionally dominated by Glencore in metals and Vitol Group in oil. Mercuria has stepped in to provide financing amid the prospect of a sweeping change of ownership of the country’s most prized metals assets — as wealth and power shifts away from people who flourished during the era of former president Nursultan Nazarbayev and a new elite rises under President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

Once part of one of the London Stock Exchange’s biggest listed copper producers, Kazakhmys was recently bought by construction magnate Nurlan Artykbayev for an undisclosed sum. Bloomberg reported in November that Artykbayev was in talks to acquire the company, which announced in December that an agreement to sell the firm had been reached, without naming the buyer. The new owner is Qazaq Acquisition Corp., wholly owned by Artykbayev, a government registry showed on Jan. 8.

Neither Kazakhmys nor Artykbayev, approached through his company Qazaq Stroy, provided a comment in response to Bloomberg’s requests.

Mercuria earlier struck a prepayment deal with Eurasian Resources Group, another major Kazakh miner which is also facing the prospect of a change in ownership.

Trading houses have long been financiers of metal miners and smelters, paying cash upfront to be repaid by a flow of commodities, and Mercuria has stepped up the pace of its dealmaking as copper prices have ratcheted higher, in recent months announcing copper financing deals in Bulgaria, Chile, Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia.

Bintas said that Mercuria was keen to do further such deals, and that its metals financing deals in 2026 might exceed those done last year. “There is more appetite for these sort of facilities. There is appetite to support producers on a long term basis,” he said.

The surge in copper prices is a vindication for Bintas, who has been predicting record copper prices above $12,000 since 2021. He said that the deal with Artykbayev’s company represented “a vote of confidence in our well established views of the copper market — that have by now materialized in the way we were hoping for.”

Still, he acknowledged that the rally in price led to a strong pullback in buying from physical consumers in China, which accounts for more than half of global demand for the metal.

“It’s surprising how much price rejection is taking place. The Chinese are just not buying copper, it’s true. But it’s finite — at some point you need to buy,” he said.

He predicted that the premium for US copper would pick up in the coming months as a decision on potential import tariffs nears. The threat of tariffs has been the major driving factor of copper astonishing rally, creating a premium in the US futures market and incentivizing traders to rush hundreds of thousands of tons to the US in a massive arbitrage trade.

“As you’re getting closer to June decision, we’ll see the arb recover substantially,” Bintas said.

(By Archie Hunter, Jack Farchy and Nariman Gizitdinov)