Chilean miner Antofagasta (LON: ANTO) plans to invest about $3.5 billion in 2025, one of the largest sums ever earmarked by the company, as it looks to expand operations in the home country and into neighbouring Peru.
Chief executive Iván Arriagada told Diario Financiero on Monday the company was actively looking for copper projects in Peru that could yield at least 50,000 tonnes of the red metal for 10 years or more. For this year, the company estimates investments will total $2.7 billion, compared to $2.13 billion in 2023.
Antofagasta, majority-owned by Chile’s Luksic family, one of the country’s wealthiest, projects local investments of over $7.5 billion in the next five years. The miner is already working on the $4.4 billion Nueva Centinela project, which will add 144,000 tonnes copper-equivalent a year to its overall production. The expansion project, approved in December, also includes increasing the current molybdenum plant’s capacity and a new development of the Esperanza Sur pit, with the introduction of new autonomous trucks.
Antofagasta recently opened a $2 billion desalination plant for its flagship mine, Los Pelambres, the first to operate with desalinated water in an area of the country that has suffered a 15-year drought.
The miner also expects to obtain all permits to start working on the $1.2 billion extension of its Zaldívar copper mine, which would allow it to continue operations through 2051.
On top of all these projects, Antofagasta expects to allocate between $40 million and $50 million a year in maintenance work at its assets in Peru, the United States and Canada.
Antofagasta, Chile’s largest copper miner after the state-owned Codelco, has set an ambitious goal of becoming one of the world’s top ten producers of the metal, primarily used in electric vehicle batteries and construction.
In recent years, the company has made several strides toward this goal, with one of the key investments in 2023 being the acquisition of a 19% stake in Peru’s Minera Buenaventura for an undisclosed sum.
The miner has also a presence in the US, through its subsidiary Twin Metals. The unit has been trying to build an underground copper-nickel mine and processing facility along the shores of Birch Lake and the South Kawishiwi River for over a decade. The project suffered a major blow last year, when the Biden administration cancelled Twin Metals’ two long-standing mineral leases and imposed a 20-year moratorium on the surrounding area.
Antofagasta has been fighting to get the licences back. The Wall Street Journal recently suggested the company would have better options of winning the case if Donald Trump gets reelected.
Speaking to Diario Financiero, Arriagada noted that he doesn’t believe so. “Our project in the US is currently in the process of defending the titles to our mining property in the courts and therefore, this does not depend on the administration in power,” he told the Chilean newspaper.
The executive noted the company will work with any administration and that he believes Antofagasta has the right to develop the project or to submit a modified application to be reviewed and approved.
“We think that Twin Metals is a valuable project because it allows local production of copper and other key metals in the US for local supply (…) It has value in today’s world in light of the challenges we see both in terms of national security and in terms of energy change and climate change,” Arriagada said. “We will continue to promote this and we will exercise our rights in the US courts.”
