Southern Copper

SCCO

Southern Copper Corporation is a mining company that was founded in 1952. The current incarnation of Southern Copper can be traced to the 2005 acquisition of Mexican copper producer Minera México by Southern Peru Copper Corporation. 88.9 percent of Southern Copper is owned by Mexican mining conglomerate Grupo México (per proxy statement dated March 27,2018) . Based on 2007 reserves data, Southern Copper is the world's largest publicly traded copper mining company and the world's seventh largest copper mining company based on 2007 sales. In addition, the firm is the eighth largest copper smelting company. The firm ranks among the world's largest producers of molybdenum, silver, and zinc. The company is a major producer and refiner of copper, molybdenum, zinc, silver, lead, and gold, and operates mines and smelters in Mexico and in Peru, in the Andes mountains southeast of Lima. Since 2012, the company has made major strides in improving their production methods. During 2013, 60.7 million dollars in environmental capital expenditures were spent on the following programs: water recovery systems to conserve water and minimize impact on nearby streams; vegetation programs to stabilize the surface of the tailings dumps; implementation of scrubbing technology in the mines to reduce dust emissions. For these continued efforts towards sustainable practices, the company was awarded with the Fray International Sustainability Award in 2014.

Southern Copper has been a target of short sellers for a while. The current short interest of 1.27% is roughly at the average of the last 12 months (1.28%).