BHP plans further growth in copper production with new projects in Chile and Australia

BHP Group (ASX: BHP) has unveiled plans to significantly grow its copper business at a time when the red metal is recording increasing global demand.

In releasing its FY24 results, the world’s largest mining company by market capitalisation announced that it had grown its overall copper volumes by 9% for the second consecutive year and expects to deliver a further 4% increase in FY25.

BHP chief executive officer Mike Henry told shareholders that the company has a pipeline of copper projects under development in Chile and Australia.

Further growth

“After two consecutive years of 9% growth in copper production, we expect to deliver a further 4% increase in FY25 as we mine higher-grade ore at Escondida and further lift productivity across all copper-producing assets,” Mr Henry said.

“In the longer term, we have built a strong pipeline of attractive options to unlock our significant resource endowment and utilise latent capacity across our Escondida and Pampa Norte assets.”

“We have narrowed around 20 studies across Chile to four main pathways involving existing and new facilities, with final investment decisions planned between FY26 and FY29.

“We also have a 45% interest in the Resolution copper project in the US, one of the largest undeveloped copper projects in the world, with the potential to become a significant copper producer in North America.”

Copper SA plans

Mr Henry noted that BHP is growing its 100%-owned Copper South Australia asset, with production up 39% in FY24 and growth projects across all three operations.

“We are assessing the pathway to deliver around 500,000 tonnes per annum of copper production in the early 2030s (around 700,000tpa copper equivalent including by-products), and a strategy to deliver up to 650,000tpa copper production by the middle of the next decade.”

“This is supported by the recent exploration success at OD Deeps and at Oak Dam, where we have declared a first-time inferred mineral resource of 1,340Mt at 0.66% copper and 0.33 grams per tonne gold.”

Copper market review

Mr Henry said that BHP expects traditional copper demand – such as from home building, electrical equipment and household appliances – to remain solid in the medium to longer term, while demand from emerging sectors such as artificial intelligence and data centres should add to this.

“The decarbonisation mega-trend is also expected to bolster demand,” he added.

“We anticipate that the cost curve required to meet that demand is likely to steepen as challenges to the development of new resources progressively increase.”

“This implies that should deficits occur in this phase – as we expect they will – fly-up pricing may well occur, which in turn could spur inducement of new, higher-cost supply in the long term.”