Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Glencore plc (Baar, Switzerland) has its eye on Teck Resources Limited's (NYSE:TECK) (Vancouver, British Columbia) coal assets, which it recently offered to buy as an alternative to a full merger of the two companies, according to The Wall Street Journal. Glencore still insists it would happily buy all of Teck for US$23 billion, but so far it has received a chilly response from the Canadian miner. However, Teck wants to split its steelmaking coal business from its base metals business and is considering several proposals from rival companies.

Globally, Industrial Info is tracking more than US$21 billion worth of active projects from Teck and more than US$14 billion worth from Glencore. Teck confirmed Monday that Glencore is one of several companies seeking to acquire its business for steelmaking coal, which also is called metallurgical coal. Glencore--which twice has seen Teck reject its proposal for a full merger--now says it is open to "de-merging" the two companies' combined coal and carbon-steel materials businesses into its own spinoff company.