If Xstrata and their Liard share are feeling lonely without Glencore...they know what to do. Oh that' sright , we need to wait for Teck....

''Certainly, Xstrata's position has advantages.

It is the only one of the five large diversified mining companies without exposure to steelmaking ingredient iron ore, where prices have slumped.

It also has the biggest proportional exposure to copper - a metal expected to benefit from scarce supply and where the value of undeveloped resources is rising, not falling, as for some commodities.

"Companies with big copper resources, with copper growth are somewhat unique - at one point, Xstrata had 20 percent of probable global production growth for the next 10 years," analyst Chris LaFemina at Jefferies said.

"The asset quality is mixed, but they have substantial growth, and diversified peers do not."