By Anthony Fensom
Copper has become the most sought-after metal of the electrification era, with major miners eyeing mega deals to acquire even more.
For Australian miners, copper’s bullishness could drive more merger and acquisition (M&A) activity, spurring increased exploration and investment activity in a nation ranked second globally for copper reserves.
BHP fired the starting gun on the mega copper deals race in 2024 with its $75-billion bid for rival Anglo American. Anglo’s valuable copper mines were seen as the key driver for the bid by the ‘Big Australian’; however, the two parties were unable to agree to terms and eventually BHP walked away from the ‘mining deal of the decade’.
Not to be outdone, reports emerged in January 2025 of a potential merger between Rio Tinto and Glencore that could create a $260-billion mining giant, becoming the world’s second-largest copper producer.
Combining Glencore’s one million tonnes per annum of copper output with Rio’s 800,000 tonnes per annum would create a miner with around seven per cent of global production, second only to US copper miner Freeport-McMoRan’s nine per cent market share.
‘Copper is an increasingly attractive asset for the majors given its growing fundamental importance to future technology and energy efficiency, and that it is sourced from “super giant” deposits with mine lives exceeding 50 years,’ says Peter Hwang, Managing Director of Queensland explorer Superior Resources.
‘With global demand continuing to rise, miners with quality copper assets will be in high demand.’
The mining majors are chasing copper amid forecasts of a 60 per cent increase in global demand by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency.
BHP expects demand to rise by around 70 per cent to more than 50 million tonnes per annum by 2050, boosted by demand from copper-hungry data centres and electric vehicles. The miner expects the world will need around 10 million tonnes per annum of new mined copper supply over the next decade.
Yet, the supply response has been lagging due to permitting issues, a lack of new discoveries and declining ore grades together with capital challenges.
In recent copper M&A deals, Rio Tinto sold a 30 per cent stake in its Winu copper project in Western Australia to Sumitomo Metal Mining for US$399 million, while Canada’s Lundin Mining sold zinc-copper mines in Portugal and Sweden to Sweden’s Boliden for around US$1.45 billion.
In January 2025, BHP and Lundin Mining completed their joint $4.5-billion acquisition of Filo Corp, with its key asset, Chile’s Filo del Sol copper project.
BHP described the acquisition as ‘an exciting new copper growth opportunity for both companies’, noting that copper is ‘essential to global economic growth, the energy transition and to the rapidly growing demand for data centres to support the harnessing of artificial intelligence’.
Elevated prices
While copper prices cooled to around US$9200 per tonne in early February 2025, down from record highs over US$11,000 per tonne in May 2024, analysts still paint a bullish picture.
Researchers BMI expect prices to remain ‘elevated’ in 2025, with the copper market expected to experience severe tightening driven by lower supply and increasing demand from the construction and power sectors. It projects an average copper price of US$10,000 per tonne in 2025, up from last year’s US$9277.
In the longer term, BMI sees copper prices reaching US$17,000 per tonne by 2033, driven by a sustained structural deficit and the acceleration of the green transition.
ANZ Research projects a 2025 average copper price of US$9129 per tonne, rising to US$10,285 in 2026, noting that a global trade war ‘arguably poses the greatest risk to economic growth and thus metals demand’.
ANZ, however, sees copper and other key minerals remaining resilient, with the new Trump administration’s policies being ‘more disruptive than destructive’. Chinese demand could also be buoyed by additional stimulus, with signs of tightness emerging in base metal markets.
The Australian Government’s Office of the Chief Economist sees global copper demand rising by around three per cent in 2025 and 2026, driven by the rise in low‑emission technology and data centres.
Australian copper export earnings are projected to reach around $15.3 billion in fiscal 2025, rising to $16.2 billion in fiscal 2026, according to the December 2024 issue of the Resources and Energy Quarterly.
Australian mine output is expected to reach 800 kilotonnes in fiscal 2025, up one per cent from the prior year, rising to 821 kilotonnes in fiscal 2026 due to new projects and expansions.
BHP aims to produce up to 325 kilotonnes at its Copper South Australia operations in fiscal 2025, with guidance lowered slightly due to a weather-related power outage at its Olympic Dam mine.
Among new projects, Develop Global has announced plans for the first concentrate production at its Woodlawn copper-zinc mine in New South Wales in the June quarter 2025, while BHP is expected to complete the Block Cave 1 expansion at its Carrapateena mine in South Australia next year.
Copper exploration expenditure dropped by 2.6 per cent in the September quarter 2024 compared to the prior quarter, with expenditure ‘levelling out’ in recent years after rising sharply in 2021, according to the government forecaster.
Yet, junior miners remain active, aiming to capitalise on the strong demand. Among them, Austral Resources and New Frontier Minerals formed a strategic alliance in January 2025 to leverage their copper assets along the Mount Isa copper belt.
Also in Queensland, Superior Resources announced plans for new drilling to test a porphyry core target at its Bottletree copper prospect, following the award of a government grant.
The company also plans to report a mineral resource estimate for its Cockie Creek porphyry copper-gold-molybdenum project during the first quarter 2025, with other new exploration planned at its Hall’s Reward high-grade copper-gold-silver project.
‘Copper is a bellwether for the global economy and is now gaining the added boost of demand from the artificial intelligence revolution and electrification,’ Superior’s Hwang says.
‘For Australian miners, this is an enormous opportunity, and we’re determined to capitalise on our copper assets to help supply this demand surge.’
