Copper futures are up 48% in a year, copper delivered more than half of BHP’s earnings for the first time, and the ASX has almost no pure copper producers left to buy.
On this week’s Switzer Show, a fund manager pitched the newest contender, and BHP’s CFO explained why the miner keeps betting on the metal.
COMEX copper futures closed at US$6.61 a pound on 24 August, up 47.9% over 12 months. BHP’s own annual report describes spot copper averaging 26% higher across FY26, with the second half up nearly 40% as the metal moved above US$13,000 a tonne.
The problem for ASX investors wanting a direct play is that the exchange keeps losing them.
BHP itself took the biggest one off the board: its acquisition of OZ Minerals, at $28.25 a share and a $9.6 billion enterprise value, completed in May 2023.
That left Sandfire Resources, now worth around $10.5 billion and trading near its 52-week high, as the big pure play standing.
The new contender
On this week’s Switzer Show, Michael Wayne, founder of Medallion Financial, pointed at Capstone Copper, which has had its CDIs trading on the ASX since February 2024 alongside its primary Toronto listing.
“CSC, Capstone Copper. It’s been listed in Canada for a long period of time, but more recently came onto the ASX… The ASX lost a couple of its big pure copper producers to takeovers, such as OZ Minerals, so it really left Sandfire on its own. There is a quality copper play that had size and scale, but CSC Capstone Copper is equally as large, if not larger, and [has] got a lot of good quality tenements.”
According to the company’s own share count, Capstone is worth north of $12 billion, ahead of Sandfire on any basis. Capstone also holds another streak, with record adjusted EBITDA for seven consecutive quarters as at its June result, with 2026 production guidance of 200,000 to 230,000 tonnes unchanged.
It’s these two records that make Capstone worth some scrutiny for copper-seeking investors:
If you are looking for some exposure, there are other alternatives outside of Sandfire. We believe Capstone to be better quality, better assets and more production upside as they ramp up some of these projects.”
When we spoke recently to Julia Lee of Shaw and Partners she said that her portfolios had sold out of Sandfire, “which has done very well for us with the record copper prices. But we think that the upside might be a bit more limited, and there’s other options out there.”
BHP is the copper king of the ASX
The scale of the copper bet at the top end of the market came through in BHP’s full-year numbers from earlier in August.
Copper contributed US$18.2 billion of the group’s US$32.9 billion in underlying EBITDA, 54% of the total on BHP’s own accounting and the first time the metal has delivered more than half.
Speaking on the same episode of the show, BHP chief financial officer Vandita Pant put it plainly. She is the company’s CFO, so the enthusiasm comes with the job title.
“We are the largest copper producer in the world. And this year, for the second year running, we produced 2 million tonnes of copper. But for the first time, copper makes up more than half of our earnings.”
According to CFO Pant, the rivers of gold (or, copper, rather) stream from South Australia: “Olympic Dam has done… record production of its last 20 years… and Copper South Australia overall [grows] from 320 to 500 [thousand tonnes] of copper just in first phase. And then we have plans to make it to 650,” Pant said.
She added on the show that the smelter and refinery expansion at the core of the program is expected to come to a final investment decision “within 18 months”.
On the program, Peter Switzer said a lot of his financial planning clients are in BHP and that he is a shareholder himself. Pant said that BHP will share more detail on the South Australian plans when it takes analysts and investors there before the end of the calendar year.
Prices as at the 24 August 2026 close; BHP figures from its FY2026 annual report and results materials of 18 August 2026; Capstone figures from its quarterly results releases.
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