Freeport-McMoRan was the world's leading copper mining company based on output in 2023, producing some 2.06 million metric tons of the metal. The U.S.-based company was followed by the Australian company BHP, with a copper output of nearly 1.4 million metric tons.
A fluctuating global copper market impacted by low supply
Throughout 2020, mine closures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a reduction of the copper production volume and demand. By April 2020, monthly copper prices had slumped to some 5,058 nominal U.S. dollars per metric ton of copper, before soaring to a record high over a year later in May 2021. This price hike was linked to depleted copper inventories in April 2021, which led the Bank of America to issue a warning regarding copper supply levels. Calls by the Chinese government over the need to restrain commodity prices paired with a strike at BHP’s Santiago integrated operations center contributed to a slight dip in copper prices thereafter. However, a new record-high copper price was recorded in May 2022, at 10,231 U.S. dollars per metric ton.
Copper market worldwide
At six percent, BHP shared the same copper production share as Freeport in 2022, only trailing Codelco, which held seven percent at that time. The Chilean copper mining company Codelco recorded revenues of over 17 billion U.S. dollars in 2022. Europe represented Codelco’s leading regional market in terms of revenues. Europe was the second largest refined copper consumer behind China and the rest of Asia, which amounted for over half of the global demand in 2022. That same year, China ranked fourth for copper mine production worldwide. It was dwarfed by Chile, which produced an estimated 5.2 million metric tons of the commodity.
