Commodity trading house Mercuria Energy Group has agreed to lend $1.2 billion to help fund the buyout of major Kazakh copper producer Kazakhmys, marking one of the largest metals pre-financing deals ever concluded. The transaction underscores Mercuria’s rapid expansion in metals trading and financing, a space long dominated by rivals Glencore and Trafigura Group.
The Kazakhmys deal is the biggest among more than $3.5 billion in metals financing and prepayment agreements Mercuria has signed in just over a year, following its strategic push into metals under the leadership of Kostas Bintas, the former co-head of metals at Trafigura. Bintas has been a long-time bull on copper and has capitalized on supply chain disruptions, rising geopolitical risks and the threat of US import tariffs that have helped push copper prices above $13,000 per tonne.
Under the terms of the agreement, Mercuria will provide financing over an eight-year period. In return, it will receive 200,000 tonnes of copper cathodes annually during the first four years, followed by a percentage of production thereafter. Bintas described the transaction as one of the largest pre-financing deals of his career and noted that such long-tenor, large-scale arrangements were historically more common in energy markets than in metals.
The financing highlights Mercuria’s growing footprint in Kazakhstan, a market traditionally dominated by Glencore in metals and Vitol Group in oil. The deal comes amid a broader reshaping of ownership across Kazakhstan’s resource sector, as economic influence shifts away from elites linked to former president Nursultan Nazarbayev toward a new business class under President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
Kazakhmys, once part of one of the London Stock Exchange’s largest listed copper producers, was recently acquired by construction magnate Nurlan Artykbayev through his company Qazaq Acquisition Corp. The purchase price was not disclosed. Mercuria has also previously struck a prepayment deal with Eurasian Resources Group, another major Kazakh miner facing potential ownership changes.
Mercuria’s aggressive expansion mirrors a broader trend of trading houses stepping in as financiers to miners, providing upfront capital in exchange for long-term commodity flows. With copper prices remaining elevated, Bintas said Mercuria expects metals financing activity to increase further in 2026, even as high prices have temporarily dampened physical buying in China, the world’s largest copper consumer.