Critical Minerals Copper
Copper Mine Production by Country
USGS 2025e recoverable mine output. World 23.0 Mt, unchanged from 2024. Chile, DRC and Peru are 49 percent of the total. Indonesia fell from 1.01 Mt to 0.71 Mt.
Copper Refinery Production by Country
China refined 14.0 Mt of 29.0 Mt world output, against 1.8 Mt mined. Chile and Peru mine far more than they refine. That gap is the concentrate trade.
Mine vs Refined, Selected Countries
The same USGS 2025e pair. Custom smelters in Japan, Germany and Korea refine copper they do not mine. This is why concentrate tightness and a refined surplus can coexist.
Global refined copper surplus or deficit forecast
October 2026 ICSG view: about 419 kt surplus in 2025, 104 kt in 2026 and 368 kt in 2027. Forecasts, not realised balances. China's apparent demand excludes unreported stocks.
US Mine Output vs Apparent Consumption
USGS salient statistics. Mine output drifted down to 1.0 Mt in 2025e while apparent consumption jumped to 2.2 Mt. Net import reliance 57 percent.
Reported Copper Output
Company tonnes, not a global supply stack. Freeport is converted from million pounds. Ivanhoe is Kamoa-Kakula on a 100 percent basis. Teck counts Quebrada Blanca and Carmen de Andacollo at 100 percent. BHP is a June fiscal year. Glencore is industrial, not marketing.
Reported Net Cash Cost
After byproduct credits, so the figures are not a pure copper cost curve. Antofagasta's 2025 drop is gold and molybdenum credits. Ivanhoe's 2025 rise follows the Kakula seismic event. Teck's 2023 figure excludes Quebrada Blanca. Freeport is omitted because the tracked 2025 series is quarterly and incomplete.
Freeport Consolidated Copper
Million recoverable pounds as filed. 2025 production 3,383 Mlb and sales 3,574 Mlb after the Grasberg mud-rush. 2026 sales guided at about 3.4 billion pounds.
Copper Miner Operating Margin
Operating margin for each miner's most recent fiscal year. The spread is wide for companies selling an identical commodity, and byproduct credits explain much of it: mines with rich gold, silver or molybdenum output offset those revenues against copper cost.
Copper Miner Revenue
Revenue for the most recent fiscal year across the US dollar filers. Freeport and Southern Copper dominate the pure-play group, though both sit well below the diversified majors that also mine copper.
Copper Miner Margin Trend
Six years of operating margin. The 2020 to 2022 surge and the subsequent normalization track the copper price, while the persistent gaps between companies reflect ore grade, jurisdiction and byproduct mix rather than the metal.
Southern Copper
52.2%
Antofagasta
41.2%
Hudbay
25.4%
Freeport
24.4%
Teck
16.5%
Nexa
13.7%
Fiscal 2016 to 2025, one scale. Dashed line: zero.
Copper Miner Capital Spending
Capital expenditure for the most recent fiscal year. This is the number that matters most for future supply, and the reason copper cannot respond quickly to price: new mines take ten to twenty years from discovery to first production.