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Abu Dhabi-based IRH Trading is building capacity to trade about 1 million tonnes per year of copper by 2030. Chief executive officer Vineet Mehra told Fastmarkets on the side lines of the FT Metals and Mining Summit in London on Thursday October 9. IRH Trading is a unit of International Resource Holding (IRH), a company that owns a controlling 51% stake in Mopani Copper Mines in Zambia. It also holds another majority stake in Alphamin Resources, a tin producer in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
IRH is backed by United Arab Emirates-listed International Holding Company (IHC), one of the richest conglomerates in the UAE.
The burgeoning trading unit has also set ambitions to grow trading in other base metals including aluminium, zinc, and tin. It aims to expand its trading in steel, crude oil, and liquified natural gas (LNG) as well, Mehra said.
He also said that parent company IRH does not plan to invest in lithium assets. However, “strategically, we are ‘long’ lithium from a trading point of view.”
IRH is also targeting a trading volume of 1 million tonnes of other metals by 2030, Mehra added.
IRH Trading seeks to expand on trading metals from mines owned by its parent company. It is also building its own network of supplies from Africa, Latin America, North America and Asia, Mehra said.
“International Resources Holding is looking at investing; what IRH Trading is looking to do is capitalize on those investments. This can occur before or after, to trade third-party tonnes and provide the same solutions as every other trader,” Mehra told Fastmarkets.
“We have a more sort of patient and longer-term outlook from the sovereign backing that we have. Our ambitions are to work very stably in the regions where we are. We aim to become a player of choice,” he added.
Since its establishment just about a year ago, IRH Trading has built a team of about 50 traders. The company has traded about 150,000 tonnes of copper in 2025, of which 60% was from its parent company. It has also traded zinc and aluminium, Mehra said. The CEO expects IRH Trading to have traded about 200,000 tonnes of copper by the end of 2025.
IRH Trading is joining the metals and crude oil trading that’s dominated by peers such as Mercuria, Glencore and Gunvor. Some of the bigger trading houses have started diversifying into metals trading as well, according to Mehra.
But the Abu Dhabi trading house isn’t daunted by the presence of the big, established names. IRH Trading collaborates with some of these existing traders, Mehra said. He cited IRH’s copper offtake from Mopani Copper Mines in Zambia. He also mentioned that the company sells to other traders including Glencore and Mercuria.
IRH Trading is taking a long-term approach to building its trading book. The company aims to establish Abu Dhabi as a commodities trading hub, the CEO said.
“Our capital allocation is more long term and more patient than short-term attempts. This applies to some of the business models of some of the traders that exist today,” Mehra said.
IRH made its debut in mining when it paid $1.1 billion to buy a controlling stake in Mopani Copper Mines in 2024. Since then, it’s bought a 56% stake in DRC tin miner Alphamin for $367 million. Those assets have become the launchpad for the trading unit’s footprint in copper-rich Zambia and DRC, Mehra said.
“We are there for the life of mine. We are not there for a trade benefit of the ‘flavor of the season’ of the metals,” he said.
While IRH is not yet trading tin from Alphamin’s Bisie mine, it’s already handling tin trades. It has also looked at potential opportunities in Malaysia. Additionally, it could consider exploring opportunities in Myanmar as well.
But at the moment, Africa remains a key focus for the growth in IRH’s assets and trading book, according to Mehra.
“Africa is sort of our main focus. Africa and the UAE share a very large strong bond,” he said. “Our idea is, where we are invested, we want to grow there first, before we look at other regions. All the regions have wonderful opportunities, but I think now we started off with a bet with Africa.”
He added that parent company IRH is exploring potential investment deals in the DRC. It is also evaluating potential metals assets, including junior miners, in Indonesia, Australia, Latin America and North America.
IRH Trading’s approach to taking a long-term view means it takes a different approach to assessing risk. This is particularly true for countries perceived as high risk, Mehra said.
“We look at a 20-30 year horizon. We are not looking to flip assets. We are looking to stay and develop along as that country develops,” Mehra said. “So when we evaluate risk, it’s very different to somebody evaluating from a short-term point of view.”
Mehra also cited IRH’s collaboration with other Abu Dhabi-based companies, which is expected to support the development of its trading operations and African assets. This support will come through logistics, as well as power and infrastructure investments in the future.
“We have a subsidiary called e.PointZero, which looks at the renewable and [energy] storage side, to build out capacities. These capacities are not only for us, but for the entire copper belt,” Mehra said.
“IRH Trading can support with power trading and fuel supply, and optimizing the cost of what goes in [the copper belt]. AD Ports, which operates the Dar es Salaam port in Tanzania, also helps us on the logistics side. This involves offtake of metal and also the intake of the fuel and storage that comes in.”
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