Vale of the trolls 巨魔山谷

NOTEWORTHY encounters between Brazil and Norway are rare. Norwegians could point to their country’s unexpected 2-1 victory over Brazil’s footballing princes at the 1998 World Cup. Brazilians may prefer to focus on a recent business deal. On May 2nd Norsk Hydro announced that it was acquiring the aluminium assets of Vale, the world’s second-largest mining company. In a deal valued at $4.9 billion, Norsk will add a mammoth bauxite mine, the world’s biggest alumina refinery and a large smelter to its own substantial aluminium business. In return the Brazilian mining giant will take a 22% stake in Norsk and pocket $1.1 billion in cash.

巴西和挪威之间的邂逅难得引人注目。挪威人可以指出他们曾在1998年世界杯出人意料地以2：1的比分战胜了巴西足球王子。巴西人则可能更喜欢把重点放在最近的一宗商业交易上。5月2日，挪威海德鲁（Norsk Hydro）公司宣布正在运作并购淡水河谷(Vale)公司旗下的铝资产，淡水河谷公司是世界第二大矿业公司。在这笔价值49亿美元的交易中，挪威公司还将增加一个大型冶炼厂和一个大型熔炉到其可观的铝业务中，该冶炼厂是世界最大的氧化铝精炼厂。作为回报，巴西矿业巨头将拥有挪威公司22%的股份以及11亿美元的现金。

Producing aluminium competitively requires cheap energy and cheap alumina, the stuff—made from bauxite—that is smelted into the metal. Most aluminium firms with the lowest costs have both. Norsk hopes to join them. It already generates bags of hydro-electric power but has relied on pricey long-term contracts with miners, or the volatile spot market, for raw materials. The availability of huge quantities of bauxite at competitive prices also offers Norsk the opportunity to expand a recently opened smelter in Qatar.

铝生产要具有竞争力，需要廉价的能量和廉价的氧化铝，这些材料——由铝矾土提炼——即从金属冶炼而来。大部分成本最低的铝业公司都兼具二者。挪威公司希望成为其中之一。它已经产生了许多水力发电的能量，但却依赖于与矿工们的昂贵的长期合同，或者是多变的现货市场来获取原材料。以具有竞争性的价格提供大量铝矾土变得可行，这为挪威公司提供了机会来扩大近期在卡塔尔（Qatar）开始运作的熔炉。

For Vale, ridding itself of its aluminium business, its third-biggest source of revenue after iron ore and coal, marks a significant change of course. Its purchase of Inco, a Canadian nickel miner, in 2006 and its failed attempts in 2008 to take over Xstrata, another big competitor, indicated that Vale’s strategy was to become a diversified global mining giant like Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. But now, as Jordi Dominguez, an analyst at HSBC, puts it, the Brazilian company is “de-diversifying”.

对淡水河谷公司来说，摆脱其旗下的铝业务——这是继铁矿和煤之后，公司收益的第三大来源——标志着公司发展方向的重大改变。2006年淡水河谷公司收购国际镍业公司（Inco)(一个加拿大镍矿企业），2008年其试图接管斯特拉塔（Xstrata）（另一个强大的竞争者）的失败，这都表明淡水河谷公司的战略是成为一个像力拓（Rio Tinto） 和必和必拓（BHP Billiton）那样的多样化的全球矿业巨头。但是现在，正如汇丰银行的分析师霍尔迪·多明格斯（Jordi Dominguez）说的，巴西公司正在“剥离多样化”。

Having shovels in many different dirt-piles is meant to provide mining giants with insurance in a cyclical industry: not all commodities will plummet and peak at the same time, according to the theory. And of course Vale’s big shareholding in Norsk will give it continuing exposure to aluminium for the time being. But Vale clearly reckons that its best bet is to concentrate on supplying the world’s steelmakers. (Even Inco’s nickel is a vital ingredient of stainless steel.) Selling its underperforming aluminium business just days after it revealed a $2.5 billion investment to develop blocks of Simandou, a vast iron-ore deposit in Guinea, reinforces the notion that Vale wants to stay big and global but become less diversified.

挖掘许多不同种类的矿藏可以确保矿业巨头抵消各种矿藏价格周期的影响：按照这个理论，不是所有商品都同时暴跌和猛涨。当然，淡水河谷公司所拥有的挪威公司的大量股份使其暂时得以继续接触铝业务。但是，淡水河谷公司明确认为，最好的战略是集中于为世界钢铁制造商供货。(甚至连国际镍业公司的镍都是生产不锈钢的的重要材料。）淡水河谷公司宣布投资25亿美元开发几内亚大型铁矿西芒杜（Simandou），仅仅几天之后就出售了表现不佳的铝业资产，更加明确了这家公司希望集中精力做大主业，减少多元化的经营理念。

Iron ore has always been the most important part of Vale’s business, sucking up half of its capital spending. This year it is set to dig up over 300m tonnes, nearly 30% of global supplies. And iron ore is selling on the spot market at close to record prices. China’s huge appetite for steel for vast infrastructure projects suggests that the price will stay high for some time.

铁矿一直是淡水河谷公司最重要的业务，吸收了该公司资本投入的一半。今年，该公司计划挖掘3亿吨铁矿，占全球总供给的近30%。而且铁矿在现货市场的价格正接近历史最高水平。由于中国有大量的基础设施建设项目而对钢铁有巨大的需求，这表明了铁矿的价格在未来还将处于高位。

Moreover, Vale’s attempts at diversification have not always gone smoothly. Inco, which made pots of cash in its first years under Brazilian ownership, is paralysed by a strike, now in its tenth month, that shows no sign of ending. And Brazil’s government holds a golden share in Vale that lets it block big deals. It takes a keen interest in Vale’s activities and has never been keen on global diversification, preferring that the company build its business at home. So even if Vale had found a target for a huge, transforming deal, Brazil’s government, like Norway’s footballers in 1998, would have proved difficult to beat.

此外，淡水河谷公司试图多样化的道路走得并非一帆风顺。国际镍业公司在从属巴西的第一年就提取了大量现金，其由于罢工而处于瘫痪状态，现在是罢工的第十个月，却没有任何终结的迹象。巴西政府还在淡水河谷公司拥有非常有利的股份，这使得淡水河谷与大宗交易失之交臂。政府很热衷淡水河谷公司的活动，但却从不热衷于全球范围的多样化，他们宁愿这个公司在国内发展业务。因此，即使淡水河谷公司发现了一个巨大的转化交易目标，巴西政府也会像1998年挪威的足球运动员一样，难以击败。