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- September 20, 2024 at 2:19 pm
Move over BHP, the ext one is coming, but we are just not certain when. Maybe these next drill results.Excellent article on the lack of exploration for copper, so far just buying other miners out. According to BHP would Zonte has is scarce (large greenfield project)
Michael Fonti BHP’s main exploration geologist has spent more than two decades on sites much like this one, working most recently at the miner’s nearby Olympic Dam, a vast, challenging copper and uranium operation. But even for BHP — a $140-billion company which generated almost $12-billion in free cash flow in the last financial year — large, greenfield projects are scarce, and becoming more so. Deals, not discoveries, are grabbing the headlines.
Richard Schodde, a veteran geologist and expert on South Australia’s copper belt, puts the number of discoveries made each year at only a handful. He describes BHP’s lucky strike at Oak Dam in 2018 “was probably the most spectacular” of recent years.
Price is clearly one reason holding back the splurge that could change that. Copper has enjoyed a bull run on fears of supply disruption and hopes of soaring green demand. Prices topped US$11,000 a ton earlier this year. But the global economy is faltering and copper needs to reach $12,000 a ton — a near-30% jump on current prices — to incentivize large-scale investments in new mines, according to Olivia Markham, who co-manages the BlackRock World Mining Fund.
Copper’s improvement since the price trough of 2020 has not been enough. Costs are rising too fast as exploration teams need go deeper, into more technically challenging deposits or into less desirable regions.
