BHP has reported record copper production, highlighting its strength and resilience in a shifting global market. Copper remains a key pillar of the company’s long-term growth strategy, supported by a diverse portfolio of assets across Chile, Australia, and Peru.
This copper ramp-up not only underscores BHP’s operational excellence but also aligns with its push for sustainable mining. Let’s take a closer look at the company’s latest copper supply, green strategies, and long-term outlook.
BHP Sees Strong Results at Key Copper Assets
Copper production reached an all-time high of 2,017 thousand tonnes (kt), up 8% from last year. This marks three years of growth and a 28% increase since FY22. Copper is key for energy transition technologies, urban development, and digital infrastructure.
Escondida Hits 17-Year High
At Escondida in Chile, copper output rose 16% to 1,305 kt—its highest in 17 years. This increase came from better recoveries, higher concentrator throughput, and a rise in feed grade from 0.88% to 1.02%. The mine also began production from its Full SaL leaching project in Q4 FY25. FY26 production is expected to be between 1,150 and 1,250 kt, with a forecasted feed grade of around 0.85%.
Spence Delivers Record Production
Pampa Norte, which includes Spence and Cerro Colorado, produced 268 kt, a 1% rise. Spence alone saw a 5% boost due to improved feed grades. However, FY26 guidance is slightly lower at 230 to 250 kt due to transitional ore processing and reduced feed grades.
Copper South Australia Rebounds
Copper South Australia produced 316 kt, down 2% from a two-week power outage in Q2. Still, the region bounced back with an 18% production boost and record quarterly output in Q4. FY26 output is projected between 310 and 340 kt, weighted toward the second half.
Other operations included Antamina in Peru, where copper production fell 17% to 119 kt due to lower feed grades and throughput. However, Antamina expects to produce 120 to 140 kt of copper and 90 to 110 kt of zinc in FY26. In Brazil, Carajás contributed 9.4 kt of copper.
Iron Ore Output Reaches All-Time High
Total iron ore output hit 263 million tonnes in FY25. WAIO led with a record 257 Mt (290 Mt on a 100% basis), driven by better mine productivity and logistics. Samarco, BHP’s joint venture with Vale, saw production rise 34% to 6.4 Mt (12.8 Mt on a 100% basis) due to an early ramp-up of its second concentrator.
Additionally, the company expects FY26 output to range from 258 to 269 Mt.
BHP’s Sustainable Shipping Contracts and Logistics Overhaul
BHP signed contracts with COSCO Shipping Bulk Co., Ltd. for two ammonia dual-fuel Newcastlemax bulk carriers. These vessels, expected by 2028, will mainly transport iron ore from Western Australia to Northeast Asia.
- Powered by low or zero GHG emissions ammonia, these ships can cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 95% per voyage compared to traditional fuels.
Notably, this initiative supports BHP’s commitment under the First Movers Coalition, aiming for 10% of its chartered shipping to use zero-emission fuels by 2030.
The partnership with COSCO followed a detailed evaluation process. BHP will also work on ammonia bunkering plans to ensure safe refueling of these advanced vessels. An ongoing tender will identify the source of the lower-carbon ammonia fuel.
$1.5 Billion Logistics Overhaul in Copper SA
The copper giant also partnered with Australian freight operator Aurizon for a logistics overhaul in Copper South Australia. Four contracts worth A$1.5 billion over ten years will shift copper concentrate and cathode transport from road to rail, covering Olympic Dam, Carrapateena, and Prominent Hill.
The freight will now move by rail between Pimba and Port Adelaide and will be handled by a local transport partner.
This change is expected to remove over 11,000 truck movements from South Australian roads each year, replacing around 13 million kilometers of road travel. Benefits include improved road safety, reduced congestion, and significant emissions cuts.
- This shift highlights operational synergies after the OZ Minerals acquisition and shows BHP’s commitment to regional sustainability.
Advances in Emissions Reductions with Strong Progress
BHP is making solid progress toward its climate goals, aiming to reduce Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 30% by 2030 (from a 2020 baseline) and reach net zero by 2050.
As of 2024, the company had already reduced its operational emissions by 32%, lowering them to 9.2 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent. However, Scope 3 emissions coming mainly from customers using BHP’s products, remained high at 377 million tonnes CO₂-e.
Looking beyond FY2030, BHP’s path to achieving net zero includes several key strategies:
- Electrifying operations: Replacing diesel-powered equipment such as haul trucks, excavators, shovels, and locomotives with electric alternatives.
- Expanding renewable energy use: Securing more renewable or low-emission electricity to power the growing fleet of electric vehicles and equipment.
- Reducing methane emissions: Minimizing fugitive methane releases through the use of current and emerging technologies, wherever technically and commercially viable.
These actions are central to BHP’s long-term decarbonization efforts and reflect its commitment to lowering emissions across both its direct operations and value chain.
BHP Stock: Market Position and Shareholder Outlook
BHP (NYSE: BHP) shares are currently trading at $55.305 on the New York Stock Exchange. Analyst sentiment is cautious for the next 12 months, with the stock generally rated a “hold.” Most price targets are near current levels, suggesting limited short-term upside.
Long-term outlooks are still positive. Experts say, if commodity markets stay steady, BHP’s solid production, smart spending, and focus on innovation could boost financial growth and increase returns for shareholders.
Following the copper surge, BHP’s Chief Executive Officer, Mike Henry, remarked,
“BHP delivered record iron ore and copper production, which demonstrates the strength and resilience of our business and underpins our ability to deliver growth and returns to shareholders amid global volatility and uncertainty.”
BHP is All Set to Meet Growing Global Copper Demand
With this record-breaking output, the mining giant is stepping up to help meet the world’s fast-growing need for copper.
- BHP expects global copper demand to rise by about 70% by 2050, reaching over 50 million tonnes per year.
That’s an average growth rate of 2% each year. And demand will come from both traditional uses like homes and appliances, and new ones such as electric vehicles, renewable energy, and data centers.
Even with cost pressures, trade changes, and tariffs, the company is investing smartly and looking for long-term growth. Additionally, recycled copper will also play a vital role in meeting rising demand over the next 30 years.
With strong operations and clean energy goals, BHP is well-prepared to support the world’s shift to a lower-carbon, more secure future.
- ALSO READ: BHP’s $14B Investment Plan for its Chile Copper Mines. Will it Impact Global Copper Supply?
The post BHP’s Copper Boom: Sustainable Mining to Meet Soaring Global Demand appeared first on Carbon Credits.
Most businesses that decide to act on their net-zero targets reach the same point of friction. Buying carbon credits has meant tracking down brokers, sitting through sales calls, and requesting a quote just to learn a price, sometimes with limited proof of what you are buying.
The earnings calls that quietly reframed climate from sustainability question to operating risk.
Three earnings calls in the last 18 months tell the story without any help from a press release.
Hershey, May 2024: cocoa price exposure compresses margin, and the company attributes part of the cost shock to West African weather. Olam, July 2024: coffee climate exposure quantified in the annual report. JBS, January 2025: supply chain climate disclosures expanded materially in response to investor pressure and regulatory expectation. None of these companies issued the announcement as climate news. They issued it as financial news. The climate-linked supply chain risk did not arrive with a sustainability framing; it arrived as a P&L line.
You are probably reading this article because you suspect the same thing is happening to your business. This piece walks through what is showing up on which earnings calls, how procurement and finance leaders are quantifying the exposure, and what serious corporates are doing about it before the regulator asks.
Where climate risk has already appeared in earnings
The pattern is consistent across resource-intensive sectors. A weather event compresses supply, the price spikes, the cost flows through the income statement, and the analyst on the call asks whether the event is anomalous or structural. Increasingly, the honest answer is the second one.
Cocoa is the cleanest example. The 2023 to 2024 West African harvest fell sharply on the back of erratic rainfall and disease. Cocoa futures more than tripled. Companies with concentrated West African sourcing absorbed the cost; companies with diversified sourcing absorbed less. The exposure was not climate as ESG topic. It was climate as cost of goods.
Coffee follows the same pattern. Brazilian and Vietnamese harvests have moved on weather more sharply across the last several seasons. Roasters with long-tenor supplier relationships and origin diversification have managed the volatility; roasters with spot-market exposure have not. Wheat, sugar, palm oil, beef: the same dynamic in different commodities, a pattern the IPCC AR6 Working Group II report projects will intensify across agricultural systems through mid-century.
What this means: climate risk is no longer a footnote in the 10-K. It is a line item the CFO has to explain on the call.
The three commodity exposures that hit margin first
For most companies with material Scope 3 exposure, three exposures dominate the near-term P&L risk.
- Concentrated single-origin sourcing in a climate-vulnerable region. If your tier-one supply for any material commodity sits in one geography, you have a concentration risk that climate amplifies. Diversification across origins is the obvious hedge, but it takes years to build and requires relationships you cannot acquire by tender.
- Supplier financial fragility under climate stress. Smallholder farmers, who supply a large share of the global cocoa, coffee, and palm oil market, do not carry the balance sheets to absorb yield shocks. When yields collapse, they exit. When they exit, your supply base shrinks, and the surviving suppliers raise prices. The risk is structural, not cyclical.
- Logistics and storage exposure to extreme weather. Hurricane disruptions to Gulf shipping, drought-driven Panama Canal restrictions, flooding in European inland waterways: each of these has moved input costs in the last three years, a pattern documented in Munich Re’s natural catastrophe data. The exposure shows up as a one-quarter event in the financial press but accumulates over time on the cost line.
TCFD and ISSB disclosure changes
The disclosure architecture has now caught up with the risk. The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, whose recommendations are now embedded in the ISSB’s IFRS S2 climate standard, requires companies to disclose climate-related risks across physical and transition categories, with quantification where possible.
For physical risk specifically (the climate-linked supply chain risk you are reading about), the disclosure must address both acute exposures (extreme weather events) and chronic exposures (gradual changes in temperature, precipitation, and growing seasons). The disclosure must address the time horizon over which the risk is material, the parts of the value chain exposed, and the financial impact under different scenarios.
The CSRD imposes similar requirements under European law, with double materiality (both financial and impact materiality) embedded in the assessment. The practical effect: your auditors and your investor relations team now need a defensible answer to the climate-linked supply chain risk question, and the answer needs to be quantified.
What procurement and finance can do now
Three actions matter near-term.
Map your exposure. Most companies do not have a clear view of which tier-one and tier-two suppliers sit in which climate-vulnerable geographies. Without the map, you cannot quantify the risk, and without the quantification, you cannot disclose it credibly. The map is the foundation, and World Resources Institute climate risk research provides useful public tooling to start.
Diversify and deepen, in that order. Diversification across origins reduces concentration risk, but the deeper move is to invest in the resilience of the suppliers you already have. Regenerative practices, agroforestry, soil health interventions: these reduce yield volatility under climate stress and protect your input cost trajectory.
Embed the climate spend inside procurement, not outside it. Treating climate risk as a sustainability cost line subordinates it to the ESG budget. Treating it as a procurement and resilience investment puts it in the budget that matters, which is the cost-of-goods budget that the CFO defends quarterly.
Nature-based supply chain investments are the asset class designed for exactly this purpose. They sit inside the value chain, they reduce climate-linked supply risk, they generate verifiable Scope 3 reductions, and they produce the documentation an auditor and a regulator can both test.
If you are quantifying climate-linked supply chain risk in advance of the next earnings cycle or the next disclosure period, the carbon and sustainability experts at Carbon Credit Capital can help you map your exposure and structure a Dual-Value Model response that addresses reduction, resilience, and disclosure-readiness in a single program. Schedule a consultation.
More and more small and medium-sized businesses are hearing the same question from their larger customers: What is your carbon footprint? That question now travels down entire supply chains, and it arrives next to tender requirements, certification criteria, and rising customer expectations.
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