The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that mining giants Rio Tinto and Glencore are said to be in merger talks, or at least recently held them. The Globe's Eric Reguly writes that Glencore, which owns the Canadian nickel miner once known as Falconbridge, tried to merge with Rio a decade ago. Since then, it has attempted to buy Teck Resources several times, most recently in 2023. The attempts failed but Glencore did pay $6.9-billion (U.S.) for 77 per cent of Teck's coal unit. The company to watch is Anglo American, the 44-per-cent owner of the Collahuasi mine in the Chilean Andes. Collahuasi is the world's second-biggest copper operation. Teck is one possible victim of such a merger. Its Quebrada Blanca copper mine lies less than a dozen kilometres from Collahuasi. QB, as it is known, is nearing full production, turning Teck into one of the industry's fastest growing copper players. Whoever buys Anglo will end up with almost half of Collahuasi. That new owner would certainly want to merge Collahuasi with Teck's QB. Teck's shares are getting expensive, and the company is technically takeover-proof as long as the Keevil family controls its supervoting A shares. Still, lavish takeover prices cannot be ruled out.