Don Lindsay, President and CEO, Teck Cominco, presented at the Macquarie Global Base Metals Outlook Conference 2008. “We have 17 operations, six development projects and dozens of partnerships focused on opportunities in copper, nickel and precious metals.” He explained that the foundation of his company’s strategy is based on the belief that “over the long run, the performance of a diversified mining company is superior to a pure-play, and that diversified companies are more highly valued than those companies primarily focused on
a single commodity.”

“We expect that over the next 12 months, coal will represent more than 50% of our revenues. I would like to begin by sharing our view on the current economic and commodity outlook, and how this is influencing our planning. We do believe that the world is entering a period of global economic slowdown. There shouldn’t be any surprise in this – we see evidence of it every day. We think that this slowdown has its roots so deep that the difficult conditions we face now could last for 12 to 18 months, or longer.

“In spite of these conditions, leading analysts still believe that although base metal demand will be weak in 2009, there could still be some growth in global terms. This does emphasise the need for keeping a global perspective. We find that when we come to Eastern North America, there is a much more bearish attitude here than we see in other parts of the world.

“Steel demand is very uncertain at this point and very concerning as the current indications are that consumption could decline. Again, taking some guidance from leading commodity analysts, the market may indeed be oversold at this point relative to where it could be in 2009.

“Importantly, governments around the world are starting to act to employ some fiscal stimulus that should provide support in the coming year. From Teck’s point of view though, the recovery is still not on our horizon and we believe it will be important to maintain a very conservative view on the prospects for commodity prices for our planning purposes.”