New U.S. legislation points to the world being short of copper in a few years. A few big mining firms could be huge beneficiaries.
A decade of underinvestment and a dense thicket of permits are challenges that the world’s top miners need to tackle head on. That is, if they want to ride a probable surge in copper prices as the world finally gets its act together to tackle climate change—a task which will require vast quantities of the red metal.
Over the last six months mining firms have begun jostling to acquire copper assets. One major reason: The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, essentially a massive green industry policy bill, which passed last August. Copper supply now looks likely to fall far short of demand over the next decade—unless big new greenfield projects are brought online.
The biggest global copper miners currently include Freeport-McMoRan; green up pointing triangle, Australian iron and copper giant BHP; green up pointing triangle, and Glencore; green up pointing triangle. Rio Tinto; green up pointing triangle, which this year finally kicked off operations at its Oyu Tolgoi project in Mongolia, could also eventually move into the top tier.
Those in the low cost bracket include Canada’s Teck—currently fending off Glencore’s unwanted advances—BHP’s newly acquired OZ Minerals, Southern Copper and Glencore itself, according to brokerage Jefferies.
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