The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that combining two copper mines in Chile is driving the merger of Teck and Anglo American, and that could turn into a technological and haggling ordeal. The Globe's Eric Reguly writes that Quebrada Blanca and Collahuasi are less than 15 kilometres from one another in the high-altitude desert of northern Chile. QB is 60 per cent owned by Teck; Anglo owns 44 per cent of Collahuasi. Putting the operations together stands a good chance of happening now that Teck and Anglo have agreed to merge in the name of "synergies" -- jargon for cost-cutting aimed at boosting profits. Anglo and Teck have four partners at the mines, including Glencore, which also owns 44 per cent of Collahuasi. The idea is to build a conveyor belt that would take Collahuasi's high-grade ore to the QB mill for processing. The question is whether the QB mill can efficiently process Collahuasi's ore. While the two mines are neighbours, they have different orebodies. Feeding Collahuasi ore into QB's mill is bound to create problems, not only because the former's ore is richer, but also because it is softer and has a different makeup of, for instance, copper sulphides. Egos and face-saving may come into play.