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  3. First it was metals, now it is the companies that mine them. In May prices for

First it was metals, now it is the companies that mine them. In May prices for

游客2023-12-16  29
问题   First it was metals, now it is the companies that mine them. In May prices for copper, nickel and other metals rose to record levels, although they have since fallen a bit. Now three mining firms are proposing the most expensive merger in the industry’s history. The $ 40 billion deal, in which an American company, Phelps Dodge, plans to take over two Canadian ones, Inco and Faleonbridge, would create the world’s biggest producer of nickel, the number two in copper, and the fifth-ranked mining firm overall. The records may not stop there:two other mining firms, Xstrata and Teck Cominco, had previously bid for Falconbridge and Inco respectively, and could make further offers.
  Soaring commodities prices have left mining firms flush with cash and keen to expand. One Way would be to search for more metal in the ground, instead of on the stockmarket. But organic growth is expensive at the moment; as firms rush to increase their output to take advantage of high prices, every conceivable input, from engineers to mining trucks’ huge tyres, is in desperately short supply. Developing new mines is also slow. Mining executives worry that projects that get the go ahead when prices are high will not look so attractive when the next slump comes.
  That could be true of the proposed merger too, of course. Phelps Dodge offered a premium of 23% over the price of Inco’s shares and 12% over Falconbridge’s. Those shares, in turn, have been rising for several years along with the firms’ wares--nickel, for the most part, at Inco, and nickel and copper at Falconbridge.
  The bosses of the firms insist that the mark-up is justified, for several reasons. For one thing, they reckon they can squeeze savings of $ 900m a year out of the combined entity by 2009, by sharing equipment and personnel among adjacent mines, for example, and pooling their marketing staff. More importantly, they argue that the size and diversity of the new company will make it less vulnerable to mining’s painful cycles, and so more attractive to investors.
  The biggest and most diversified mining companies, such as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto, do boast higher share valuations. They produce everything from aluminium to zircon, and so are less susceptible to flutuations in the price of any particular metal. By the same logic, the more mines a firm is running or developing, and the more countries it operates in, the less risk each individual project poses to profits.
  The merged trio will certainly have a broader geographical spread, with mines in five continents. But its main projects, in stable places like the United States, Canada and Chile, never seemed that risky in the first place. Furthermore, despite having sidelines in cobalt and molybdenum, the new firm’s fortunes will depend chiefly on the price of copper and nickel--two of most volatile metals of late.
  Some analysts mutter that Phelps Dodge embarked on the merger chiefly to save itself from being taken over. Investors seem to share their doubts: Phelps Dodge’s shares fell by 8% after it announced the deal, despite a simultaneous pledge to spend $ 5 billion on a share buy-back scheme once the merger is concluded.
  On the other hand, the price of nickel and copper jumped on the news. Traders seem to have assumed that the companies would have contemplated such an expensive deal only if they thought that metals would remain in short supply for some time. The more money that mining firms spend buying one another, rather than exploring for and developing new mines, the likelier that is.  [br] The phrase "get the go-ahead" in the second paragraph probably means
选项 A、be given permission to start doing something.
B、get the money needed to invest in something.
C、start in such a hurry that it involves some risks.
D、increase the output of the mining companies.
答案 A
解析 语义理解题。本段第二句提到公司业务做大的一个办法：开采更多的金属。接下来指出该办法遇到的问题。这些问题导致采矿管理人士担心：到下一轮经济萧条时期来临时，金属高价期间projects that get the go-ahead将风光不再。显然这里说的是“公司业务做大”和“开采金属”的内容，go-ahead是个合成词，与短语go ahead应该有语义上的联系，后者意为“前进，前行”，可以试推断projects that get the go-ahead在这里是表示“获得批准上马的工程”，将该意放回原处，符合上下文语义逻辑及衔接关系，故为答案。[B]具有很强的干扰性，但上下文处没有提到项目投资资金。[C]项无上下文语义联系；[D]是对第三句的断章取义，无根据。
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