BHP is drawing a new and broader class of international investors attracted to the mining giant’s copper exposure as artificial intelligence drives demand for the metal, said Reuters citing the miner’s CFO on Wednesday.
Vandita Pant, speaking at the Macquarie Australia Conference in Sydney, said generalist investors were increasingly buying into BHP as they sought upstream exposure to the AI infrastructure build-out without having to back individual technology companies. “They like electrification like AI, but they don’t want to pick winners,” she said. “They are going upstream and saying where’s the bottleneck? Copper is a bottleneck.”
BHP, the world’s largest listed miner and a top copper producer, reported stronger-than-expected first-half underlying profit earlier this year, with copper surpassing iron ore as its leading earnings contributor for the first time. Shares hit a record on 2 March before retreating amid a broad sector selloff following the outbreak of the Iran war, though they have since recovered some ground, said Reuters.
Pant said BHP’s portfolio — centred on copper, iron ore, potash and coking coal — was regularly reviewed. She also highlighted the company’s uranium output, produced as a byproduct at its Olympic Dam operations in South Australia. “We continue to be quite positive even on uranium,” she said.
Major fund managers have signalled growing conviction in a sustained mining rally, with capital flowing into the sector at its fastest pace in years on the back of AI infrastructure spending, rising defence budgets and a rotation out of high-priced technology stocks.
