Copper’s resurgence is reshaping mining companies’ strategies, exploration budgets, and investor appetite, as tightening supply and structural demand fuel a new phase of mining momentum.
After years of drifting within a broad range, copper is again dictating the tempo of global resources markets. The metal’s recovery is not simply a price story – is a confidence story, a capital allocation story, and increasingly, it is a development story playing out from Western Australia to Peru.
While majors expand existing operations, junior and mid-tier copper plays are regaining confidence amid an improving market backdrop. That shift is visible on conference floors, in drilling campaigns and in feasibility work now gathering pace.
As reported in part one of this series, copper is making a comeback with global mining giants now anchoring their growth on the red, conductive, and ductile metal amid surging demand driven by electrification, renewable energy, and increasingly, AI data centres.
Prices have been trending higher in recent years, yet output is far from where it needs to be. At the February RIU Explorers Conference, where Mining.com.au served as official media partner, copper was a stand out as one of the most discussed commodities. Explorers were showcasing projects spanning Australia to Latin America, reflecting a renewed belief that the market is prepared to fund discovery and development once more.
The tone is markedly different from the caution that defined parts of the past cycle. Investors are again willing to differentiate between assets, jurisdictions and stages of development. Copper is at the centre of that reassessment.
Declining grades and output
It comes following a horrid Q3 2025 when 18 of the largest 25 copper miners reported quarter-on-quarter decreases in their output, including the top four miners. The total Q3 copper production reported by the top 25 miners hit 3.72Mt.
Among the most notable declines were Codelco and Freeport-McMoRan, which saw 10.2% and 5.3% quarter-on-quarter drops in production, respectively. Both were affected by operational disruptions that included several fatalities and temporary suspensions of activity.
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), disruptions to mine output, a collapse in refining margins, and stockpiling by the US are pushing the global copper market into a period of sustained strain.
While recycling and efficiency gains are poised to prevent a catastrophic shortfall from emerging, persistent tightness will raise costs and complicate defence, energy-transition and AI-infrastructure plans through the late 2020s, the institute says.
“The global supply of refined copper is likely to be constrained in 2026 and beyond by a combination of disruptions and strategic stockpiling by the United States. Market tightness is being shaped by a convergence of supply-chain frictions, policy choices and accelerating demand from electricity grids, defence production and the construction of infrastructure related to artificial intelligence,” IISS reports.
The decline in output by these major operations mostly comes down to grade and permitting, says Renegade Exploration (ASX:RNX) Executive Chairman Robert Kirtlan.
Very large operations have been seeing declining grades and increasing costs for some time. However, Kirtlan notes permitting is also affecting a number of larger deposits, leading to delays coming online to replace existing operations either closing or producing less.
Shooting Star: ‘Chile North’
Echoing these comments, Star Copper (CSE:STCU) CEO Darryl Jones says the potential shortfall projected in 2026 to 2030 “is precisely the reason projects like ours are critical for the next investment cycle into copper projects”.
Recently speaking to this news service, Jones says declining output is a global issue, not regionally specific.
“New mine production is declining and the copper surplus is dwindling. To note British Columbia has vast mineral potential in the copper space,” Jones says.
“Large projects have been producing now for quite some time and they have depleted their reserves, coupled with no new large mines coming online.
“British Columbia is tagged as ‘Chile North’ so we feel that we are positioned very well. I think with the changing tides of globalisation each country is looking to secure their own critical mineral sources,” he adds.
As these looming supply shortages are top of mind for companies big and small, this is driving investment and work programs to be able to deliver results that could lead to larger investment, Jones adds.
It’s certainly driving Star Copper’s exploration focus in 2026. As previously reported, the company has now deployed an advanced deep-penetrating 3D induced polarisation survey.
Results from the survey will be integrated into its three-dimensional geologic model and are expected to directly inform drill targeting, hole orientation, and depth selection for a planned aggressive drill program. The company is awaiting additional drill results from a phase two drill program conducted in 2025.
Star is an explorer and developer focused on developing high-potential copper projects in mining-friendly jurisdictions. Its Star project is an alkalic copper-gold porphyry asset located within the Golden Triangle and Golden Horseshoe regions of British Columbia, Canada.
The company is conducting a non-brokered private placement of C$5 million ($5.17 million) to fund an ‘aggressive’ drilling campaign that will comprise step-out drilling, deeper testing of priority targets, and follow-up drilling guided by ongoing three-dimensional geological modelling and the planned deep-penetrating 3D geophysics.
Grade and scale ‘king’
This urgency is being felt by Pivotal Metals (ASX:PVT), whose Managing Director Ivan Fairhall says the supply pipeline shortage is becoming critical.
Recently speaking to Mining.com.au, Fairhall says the junior and development sector has been starved of capital over the past decade, so there are few advanced projects that can deliver incremental supply into the market.
“Pivotal has a large, shallow, low technical risk project that sits in the tier one global jurisdiction of Québec. Projects like Horden Lake are well poised to come into production in the next cycle to deliver needed copper tonnes into an ever growing market,” the Managing says.
Pivotal is one of the few advanced players in this regard. It delivered an increase of copper grade by 2.1 times in a recent large-scale ore sorting trial at the Horden Lake Project in Québec, Canada. The ore sorting program indicated an increase in copper and copper-equivalent grade through the rejection of 68% of the mass and 29% copper recovery.
Pivotal’s copper recovery is set to increase to 86% through a less selective sorting criteria, with a 1.5 times increase in feed grade through 44% mass rejection.
“Projects like Horden Lake are well poised to come into production in the next cycle to deliver needed copper tonnes into an ever growing market”
The company has the ability to increase its plant feed grade with a potential to lower processing and operating costs. Fairhall says large-scale X-Ray transmission (XRT) ore sorting indicated a “major step forward” for the project and demonstrates its developmental optionality.
As Fairhall tells Mining.com.au, in the current environment both grade and scale become even more crucial.
“As the ‘easy deposits’ are depleted, mines are getting lower grade, deeper and require higher degrees of technical risk to operate. The recent round of supply disruption has been a direct impact of technical failures which is a trend which is likely to continue as newer more complex mines are developed,” Fairhall continues.
“It’s a global issue. Mines are getting more and more challenging to develop and operate, and so this points to an asymmetric downside in terms of the industry’s ability to deliver nameplate capacity.”
Frazer Tabeart, Managing Director of Alma Metals (ASX:ALM) agrees that grade and scale are king as new mines come online. Speaking to this news service, Tabeart says with demand being driven by the inexorable shift to renewable energy, electric vehicles, and AI/data centres – all of which require significantly higher copper volumes than older technology – projects being developed must be quality and of scale.
Current global copper production from mines is around 24Mt per year, but the recent supply constraints have removed up to 750,000t from the production forecast for 2026. This, coupled with potential tariffs on non-US copper production is driving significant price increases, with the red metal reaching all-time highs in early December, Tabeart says.
Not only is new production urgently required it must “be meaningful, needs to come from large-scale mines that are efficient so that prices do not run out of control”.
“With long lead times for permitting and construction, mines with or near to existing infrastructure have a distinct advantage over those in developing countries or remote outback locations lacking the supporting infrastructure,” he explains.
Most new production of meaningful scale in the next 10 years is likely to come from the Americas (US, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, and Panama) and Australia (Queensland and WA), and to a lesser extent Asia (Indonesia, Mongolia), says Tabeart.
In Australia, Caravel (WA) and Alma Metals (Briggs Copper Project in Queensland) are both very large, low-grade deposits that have development potential.
“Operating in tier one jurisdictions is critical for long-term project success and investor confidence. These regions offer stable political environments, transparent regulatory frameworks and well-established legal systems that minimise sovereign risk and reduce the likelihood of sudden changes to taxes, royalties or operating conditions,” the Managing Director adds.
Tensions and top tier targets
The copper executives polled by Mining.com.au agree the global geopolitical tensions are as high as in recent memory, meaning top tier Western-alighted jurisdictions will benefit from the capital flows as the global supply chain looks for certainty. The US, Canada, and Australia are getting a lot of focus.
“Copper is coming into 2026 incredibly strongly,” Pivotal’s Fairhall says.
“The most notable thing is that pricing has been driven by supply disruption, against a fairly weak demand outlook. As the global economy stabilises and begins to grow again, the increased demand is going to compound the current shortage.”
Kincora Copper (ASX:KCC) CEO Sam Spring agrees but quickly points out that these issues facing the industry are not unique. The copper sector generally sees about 5% of production lost each year due to supply disruptions. However, 2025 was expected to deliver the highest level of disruptions in terms of a percentage of total supply for 17 years – potentially above 7.5%.
Spring acknowledges the world’s four largest copper mines have all experienced multi-year operational setbacks but all for various different reasons. This highlights the increasing supply side challenge and comes at a time where Morgan Stanley is forecasting the biggest deficit in the copper market for over 20 years.
Kincora is keeping this back of mind as it advances its assets. In late 2025 it began drilling at its Wongarbon Project to confirm the project’s prospectivity for hosting one of the large and untested intrusive complexes of the Macquarie Arc in New South Wales.
Given these have been the highest levels of disruptions for nearly two decades, Renegade Exploration is also aligning its exploration activities with the view the red metal was moving towards structural deficit “evidenced by the copper price reaction to some recent production problems at the bigger producers”.
“We need juniors to be active in the exploration space as we perhaps move a little quicker than the majors when it comes down to it. Whilst we are looking for the ‘big one’ smaller deposits are also on our radar which in the current environment will prove to be valuable,” Renegade’s Executive Chairman says.
Copper load of these companies
Other players active in the space include Olympio Metals (ASX:OLY), which in late February 2026 signed a binding agreement with Lia Energy to acquire two projects in the US, prospective for copper, as well as silver and antimony.
Also in Australia, Revolver Resources (ASX:RRR) is raising $2.6 million in equity to fund the advancement of the Dianne Copper Mine Project in Queensland. Managing Director Pat Williams says Revolver is focused on advancing several potential funding packages for Dianne.
“In this regard, I am pleased to say that the combination of strong global copper market demand and price appreciation over recent months has seen progressive and significant improvement in the commercial terms offered by potential counterparties within this process,” Williams says.
“This capital raising delivers us the ability to continue advancing and optimising the project funding process towards targeted near-term finalisation, while also committing to further critical path site early development works and procurement activities in parallel.
“(The) combination of strong global copper market demand and price appreciation over recent months has seen progressive and significant improvement in the commercial terms offered by potential counterparties within this process”
“This is expected to place Revolver and the short-lead, capital-lite Dianne Copper Mine Project in the ideal position for a targeted positive final investment decision in coming months.”
Canadian company Power Metallic Mines (TSX-V:PNPN) believes it is in “great shape” to ramp up exploration, after receiving results from a Canadian fall drilling program at the Lion Zone in Québec.
CEO Terry Lynch says the summer-fall 2025 program was designed to search for extensions to the Lion Zone, specifically down plunge from known mineralisation. The program aimed to infill drill the deposit to define the zone geometry to an indicated confidence level for a future resource estimate to be carried out.
Results include 8.40m @ 8.05% copper-equivalent within 20.40m @ 4.11% copper-equivalent; and 5.10m @ 9.89% copper-equivalent included in 8.60m @ 6.34% copper-equivalent.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: Alma, Star Copper & Mining.com.au
