Antofagasta doubles dividend as profits hit new record

The investor clamour for copper exposure has helped push Antofagasta (ANTO) profits up by half in 2025, as higher prices for gold and copper outweighed a slight drop in output.

The South American miner reported an average copper price of almost $11,000 (£8,100) per tonne for the year, almost 20 per cent ahead of 2024.

This alone added $1bn to the top line of $8.6bn for 2025. Copper production for the year was 653,700 tonnes, down 2 per cent on the year before.

Ebitda was up 52 per cent to $5.2bn, while cash flow from operations was up 30 per cent to $4.3bn. The final dividend of 48¢ was double the payout from last year. Peel Hunt analysts said this showed “a degree of conservatism from the board”, although it was ahead of consensus forecasts.

This approach comes alongside the significant spending on major new infrastructure across the portfolio, including the concentrator plant at Centinela and water facilities at Los Pelambres, both in Chile. Last year was the peak of spending at $3.7bn, with the capital budget guided to be $3.4bn for 2026. Production guidance for this year is 650,000-700,000 tonnes of copper.

Antofagasta’s shares dropped 3.6 per cent in response to the results, as investors saw record profits but “just not quite as big a record as we expected”, the Peel Hunt analysts added.

Expectations were high after investors sent the miner’s shares up almost 100 per cent in the past year. We moved Antofagasta to hold in 2023 as production fell and it cut payouts to help cover the upcoming capex.

That advice (hold at 1,621p per share) stands despite it looking less than clever in the interim, given the buzz around the metals space and the current copper run coming from tariff-induced buying and supply issues rather than fundamental shortages. Hold.

Last IC view: Hold, 2,118p, 14 Aug 2025