BHP Billiton is on the hunt for its next big copper project

BHP Billiton is on the hunt for its next big copper project.

The world’s largest miner said it is looking to add more copper to its portfolio through exploration, as demand increases for the metal in renewable energy and electric cars.

It is open to forming alliances with junior mining companies, said Danny Malchuk, president of operations in the Americas.

“We want more copper resources in our portfolio,” Mr Malchuk said. “And we believe the most valuable pathway to achieving this is through exploration, the drill-bit.”

The company’s exploration portfolio consists of 79 projects covering 1.8m hectares, he said. BHP is looking at discoveries in Ecuador, Chile, Peru, the southwest of the US and Australia, he said.

“As BHP our thresholds are very high — we don’t settle for the regular Joe type of copper mine. We go for the big stuff,” Mr Malchuk said.

Miners are having to spend billions of dollars on their existing copper mines just to keep supply steady, as they dig ever deeper for supplies. That’s likely to lead to a deficit in supply by the beginning of the next decade, according to Mr Malchuk.

BHP has invested close to $10bn in its Escondida copper mine in Chile over the past five to six years to maintain production at around 1.2m tonnes a year.

Original Source
  • RSS caliche’s RSS Feed

  • oroco
  • November 2017
    M T W T F S S
     12345
    6789101112
    13141516171819
    20212223242526
    27282930  
  • Stockhouse Feed

  • %d bloggers like this: