Peru’s minister of mines Jorge Merino, in China for a few days, is to meet with Chinalco and Minmetals officials. Both companies are bidding to buy Glencore’s Las Bambas copper mine. A third state-owned metals giant, Jiangxi Copper, had also shown interest, though it’s less clear if it’s still being considered. The minister will still meet with them anyway, perhaps to talk about their other activities in the country. Remarkably enough, at least two state-owned Chinese companies are competing for a project, which isn’t often the case.

Glencore has been told by Chinese regulators to dispose of Las Bambas, worth perhaps almost $6bn, as a condition for their approval of the takeover of Xstrata. All three companies already have operations in Peru.

I wrote a few months ago about Jiangxi Copper’s interest in a Greenland mine, a project that isn’t making much news at the moment.