Romania has shortlisted two of the three bidders in the auction for its national copper reserves, economy minister Varujan Vosganian was quoted as saying by news agency Mediafax.

Romania expects at least USD 460mn [EUR 346mn] from the auction, out of which EUR 40mn would be the down payment.

The two qualified bidders are Yildirim Holding (Turkey) and Trafigura (The Netherlands), while Glencore (Swizerland) was not accepted because of insufficient documents related to the bank guarantees. Each of the three bidders was required to submit as part of their preliminary documents bank guarantees for EUR 1.2mn, Vosganian explained. The auction should be completed by mid-October, he added.

The government wants to sell in advance the 331,889 tonnes of copper concentrate* to be delivered by the copper mining company over the next seven years. The starting price for the whole amount of copper is USD 6,900 per tonne of copper in the copper concentrate.

The government wants a EUR 40mn payment in advance, payable in one instalment by December 1, 2013. The company would deliver 45,360 tonnes of copper concentrate for this down payment – to be adjustable according to the price achieved in the auction for the whole amount to be delivered in the seven-year period.

* Copper concentrate is the first commercial product of the copper production line and is composed of approximately equal parts of copper, iron and sulfide. Concentrates are the raw material for all copper smelters, which by processing it obtain an impure form of metallic copper, anode or blister copper that is later used to produce high purity refined copper.