The European steel industry has again expressed its opposition to a joint venture between BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, two of the largest iron ore producers in the world.
“The joint venture, which has been agreed by BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, will combine their production and infrastructure facilities and will unavoidably lead to market concentration and an increase in pricing power of the combined company which is unacceptable in competition terms”, said EUROFER director general Gordon Moffat. “We believe that this is a full-function joint venture which will not be different from the full merger attempted last year. It must be fully examined by the European competition authorities.”
EUROFER has already asked the Commission to reject this joint venture.