First there was news of the Centaur acquisition from Joseph Gutnick, then there was the heralding of the company’s “three nickel province strategy”, and most recently we’ve seen bullish forecasts about the future of its Officer Basin water project.

The thrust of the message? Anaconda has come of age. It now controls 4 billion tonnes of dry laterite targets and has more than 1.3Bt of resources and reserves drilled up. It would like the market to believe it has the projects and the corporate mass to challenge entrenched sulphide nickel producers.

Leaving the sniping of WMC behind for a minute (see Dryblower), Anaconda’s frenetic desire to gain size has brought with it an army of speculators who believe it too has to be taken over.

The latest rumor to hit the mill this week was that Anglo American would bid for Anaconda at $4.20 a share.

The rumor appears to be based on little more than the fact that Anaconda’s chief executive Andrew Forrest was in London this week for “dialogue” with Anglo before flying on to Sydney for the Olympics.

While the relationship between Anglo and Anaconda is said to be excellent, MiningNews.net understands that Forrest was less than thrilled when Anglo picked up about 6 million shares at $2.75 from Marc Rich without telling him.

Anaconda’s other major shareholder, Glencore, then swung around last Friday and brought 2 million shares at more than $3 from a European institution. If that wasn’t enough, yesterday Sheritt Corporation and Ontario Inc announced that it had increased its stake in the company from 12.8 million shares to 34.4 million shares.

This leaves Anaconda very delicately balanced: If you’re a punter check the percentages, but in broad terms at press time Anglo had more than 24% of the company, Glencore 22%, Sherrit more than 9% and Forrest 8%. If Anglo is to take control as speculated it will need help from the top of the register. Who will play Judas is anyone’s guess.

Anaconda is hardly the only fish Anglo has to fry. Yesterday it announced that it had walked out on the US$250 million Kabanga nickel project in north-western Tanzania. Based on production from two orebodies the project is slated to produce 17,000t of nickel, 1600t of copper and 1200t of cobalt per year. It appears size, not economics, was the reason for the withdrawal.

That same day Anglo also said it would outlay US$536 million for the Skorpion zinc project in Namibia. If that wasn’t enough, Anglo is also considering spending US$860 million on the Gamsberg zinc project in South Africa. If it does make that acquisition it will control 8% of the world’s zinc market.

Heartening stuff if you are an Anaconda shareholder. And the “snake” only has two major laterite resources left to swallow in WA if it is to virtually control it all.

The first is Heron Resources’ Goongarrie, Ghost Rocks and Kalpini ground which holds more than 180Mt of indicated and inferred material at better than 1% nickel and a cobalt grade around 0.06%.

Heron has strategic alliance with Centaur whereby Heron can toll mill ore through the nearby Cawse stage I plant providing it gives Centaur a minimum 20% feed for Cawse Stage II.

The other player is NiWest, which is the holding company for the combined lateritic nickel assets of Western Metals and GME Resources. NiWest has a current resource inventory of 109Mt grading better than 1% Ni and 0.07% Co. Its ore sits in nine locations all less than 50km from Anaconda’s Murrin Murrin plant.

Forrest has danced with both companies without being able to get to close. That’s hardly surprising, but what has not been widely reported is the furious foxtrotting that has gone on between NiWest and Heron.

Neither were keen to say too much, but there is a quiet acceptance that scale is vital if their projects are to garner financing.

In the case of NiWest, there are better than average grounds for optimism that something could get up given WestMet’s experience with high pressure acid leach processing at Mt Gordon in Queensland.

Both companies have expressed the view that they would like to produce a mixed nickel cobalt intermediate that could be on-sold to offshore refiners.

The rationalisation of base metals assets with scale across the globe serves as a handy signpost as to where the industry is headed.

It shall be interesting to see just where these juniors are when the embrace becomes a bit tighter and the music stops.