Why copper is set to play a big role in BHP’s future

BHP remains at the forefront of global mining, leveraging a history of resilience and innovation to lead the industry into a new era.

Charles Rasp could scarcely have imagined that in 2025 the company he founded 140 years earlier would be represented in the White House, with its chief executive meeting the US President to discuss global critical minerals supply chains, and why companies like BHP are crucial to winning the artificial intelligence (AI) race.

The White House meeting on August 19 between President Donald Trump, US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, BHP chief executive Mike Henry, and his Rio Tinto counterparts was convened to specifically discuss the Resolution Copper mine, recognised as one of the largest and best undeveloped copper deposits in the US.

The meeting underlined the crucial role mining plays in a modern, technologically driven global economy and in securing global supply chains.

Located near Superior, Arizona, the BHP–Rio Tinto joint venture Resolution Copper project has been bogged down in red tape and legal wrangling for the past 20 years.

Following the White House meeting, Henry expressed optimism that the project could finally move forward.

In a LinkedIn post, Henry wrote that BHP appreciated the US Government’s efforts to boost mining and open new possibilities for development, especially for critical minerals such as copper and potash, two key areas of interest to BHP.

“Resolution Copper is one of the largest untapped, high-grade copper resources in the US today,” Henry wrote.

“Copper is essential to everyday life as a critical component in powerlines, smartphones, medical equipment, cars, and data centres. Demand for copper is growing strongly.

“The world needs more mining to build the future.”

Along with Resolution, BHP’s global copper operations include several mines in South America, including Escondida in Chile the world’s largest producer of copper concentrates and cathodes, and Pampa Norte, which produces high-quality copper cathode.

In Chile, BHP has a strong pipeline of organic growth options with attractive returns across its main assets, with forecast copper production to average around 1.4 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) through the 2030s. It also has a non-operating partnership in Antamina, a large, low-cost copper and zinc mine in Peru.

In Australia, BHP’s wholly owned Copper South Australia project comprises the Olympic Dam, Carrapateena and Prominent Hill underground and surface operations, as well as the Oak Dam exploration project. These are located within SA’s Gawler Craton, one of the world’s most significant copper, gold, silver and uranium oxide basins.

The company noted in its 2025 annual report that it was assessing a pathway to deliver more than 500 kilotonnes per annum (ktpa) of copper production, with a strategy to scale up to 650 ktpa from Copper South Australia.

Where it all began

The BHP story began in 1883, when Charles Rasp, a boundary rider on a remote sheep station in the Barrier Ranges of New South Wales, discovered silver and lead on a rocky outcrop known as Broken Hill. Rasp paid the NSW Government the annual rent of five shillings an acre on two miles of mining lease, thought to be the largest single lease taken out on a payable orebody in Australia at that time.

The Broken Hill Proprietary Company Ltd was floated on the stock exchange in 1885, with its head office in Melbourne, where it remains in 2025. The company soon became known simply as BHP.

Australian historian Professor Geoffrey Blainey, writing on BHP’s early years, noted that, apart from one, none of the seven directors were trained miners.

“The seven directors were wool men, and with one exception their expertise was not in the mining industry,” Blainey wrote.

“Fortunately, they made one of the wisest decisions in Australia’s industrial history: they decided that they would search overseas for the best engineers whom money could buy.”

Innovation and global aspiration

That decision set the stage for two of the company’s defining characteristics: its willingness to embrace the global arena and its commitment to technical excellence.

Dutch-born engineer and metallurgist Guillaume Delprat was an early example of these values.

Impressed by his academic writings and his work on mines in Spain (where he had helped resurrect ancient Roman silver mines), as well as in Mexico and the US, BHP persuaded Delprat to move to the Australian colonies in 1898 first to Broken Hill and then to Adelaide.

Starting as the assistant general manager, he succeeded another esteemed early Australian mining figure, Sir Alexander Anderson Stewart, as general manager in 1899.

In the early 1900s, Delprat was central in developing the Potter–Delprat flotation process, a pivotal innovation in mining history.

The process separated ore from crushed rock by using bubbles to float the ore to the surface, enabling the extraction of vast tonnages of zinc that had previously been uneconomic.

Speaking at the IMARC gala dinner in 2016, Henry, then president of BHP’s Minerals Australia business, said Delprat’s legacy embodied the commitment the company – and the broader Australian mining industry – has to innovation.

“From the Potter–Delprat Flotation process invented in Broken Hill over a century ago to the drone technology, driverless trucks and automated drills of today, our industry has never shied away from the challenges or opportunities that pave the way for innovation,” Henry said.

Nation-building

Over the next eight decades, BHP flourished as Australia grew.

The nation’s demand for mineral resources fuelled the company’s expansion, with milestone moments including the opening of the Newcastle Steelworks in 1915; support for WWII defence efforts; the creation of its Central Research Laboratories in Newcastle in the 1950s; and the discovery of rich iron ore deposits at Mt Newman in the Pilbara in the late 1960s.

The company’s operational excellence, married to commercial acumen, resulted in BHP becoming an Australian mining giant, and one of the country’s best-recognised brands.

The company ventured beyond Australian shores in 1984 with the $1.7 billion acquisition of Utah International, a major exporter of metallurgical coal from central Queensland to east Asia.

That acquisition turned BHP into a major coal exporter, and it expanded operations into the US, Brazil, Canada and Chile.

Now a global business, iconic TV ads in the 1980s further cemented its reputation at home as the ‘Big Australian’.

BHP hurtled towards the new millennium. Its controlling interest in the Escondida mine in Chile made the company one of the world’s leading copper miners, while the establishment of the EKATI diamond mine in Canada broadened its minerals suite.

Its chief businesses at the time were steel, copper, iron ore, coal, natural gas, oil and petroleum. Then BHP chief executive John Prescott even floated the idea of moving into construction and transport.

New millennium, new challenges

However, not everything BHP touched turned to gold.

Its $3.2 billion Magma Copper Mines acquisition in 1996 did not go as planned, and the Ok Tedi copper mine in Papua New Guinea was embroiled in controversy. The late 1990s were a relatively difficult period for the miner as its share price took a hit.

In 1999, the company made the momentous call to close its Newcastle steelworks, which marked the start of its exit from steelmaking. In 2001, it merged with Anglo-Dutch metals and minerals company Billiton to become BHP Billiton. The next year saw the demerger of BHP Steel.

Rapid growth was soon tempered by a return to its traditional core of mining businesses.

Meanwhile, China had begun its meteoric industrialisation, with average annual growth rates of 9–10 per cent during the 1990s and beyond.

The country’s massive demand for minerals proved serendipitous for BHP and the entire Australian mining industry. By the end of 2015, BHP had shipped more than one billion tonnes of iron ore to China.

One hundred and forty years from its founding, BHP is active around the world, with major operations in Australia, Chile, the US, Brazil, Canada and Peru. Its global headquarters remain in Melbourne, where it opened its first office.

“BHP, like many companies that became notable, made the most of adversity,” Blainey wrote.

Other companies talk about resilience, but BHP lives it.

Even after 20 years of relative frustrations, it is easy to get the sense that the Big Australian has more than enough resolve to make Resolution Copper work.

In the 2025 annual report, Henry did not shy away from BHP’s sizeable investment in copper mining.

“We’re seeing an increasing focus on critical minerals supply and supply chain security across the globe,” he said. “This is happening against a backdrop of growing geopolitical and trade tensions, and reflects a growing understanding and acceptance of the critical role mining will play in supporting national security, energy transitions and technology development.

“We’ve reshaped our portfolio in anticipation of the megatrends playing out around us, including our position in copper. A much greater proportion of our EBITDA [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation] – 45 per cent in FY2025 – now comes from copper.”

On its 140th birthday, the world’s biggest miner, which Henry also describes as the world’s best, is in a prime position to continue its remarkable story of growth, resilience and innovation as it leads the way on critical minerals production into the future. 

This feature appeared in the October issue of Australian Mining magazine.