Yunnan Copper: The Hongnipo copper mine is currently under construction, with annual self-produced copper concentrates expected to contain 69,800 mt of copper

Published: May 28, 2026 15:35

The investor relations activity record of Yunnan Copper for May 26–27, 2026 shows:

1 What is the company's planned copper concentrate production from captive mines this year, and what is the approximate cost level of the mining enterprises?According to the company's 2026 financial budget and production plan, full-year self-produced copper concentrates are expected to contain 69,800 mt of copper metal content. The company's current mining enterprises mainly include Diqing Nonferrous, Liangshan Mining, Yuxi Mining, and Diqing Mining. Due to differences in resource endowment and the life cycle stage of each mine, cost levels vary, with Diqing Nonferrous, Liangshan Mining, and Yuxi Mining having relatively lower costs. Meanwhile, the company strives to maintain overall cost stability through measures such as lean operations and increasing mining volumes.

2 What is the progress of the Hongnipo copper mine construction project of Liangshan Mining?The Hongnipo copper mine is currently under construction, with cumulative verified resource reserves of 16.06 million mt of ore, an average copper grade of 1.42%, and copper metal content of 592,900 mt. The project is progressing in an orderly manner as planned and is expected to be completed and ready for commissioning in 2026.

3 Will the mine resources under the company's major shareholder be injected into the publicly listed firm? Asset injection involves complex systematic work that requires comprehensive consideration of development strategy, asset conditions, regulatory requirements, and shareholder interests. The company will continue to focus on and strive to enhance the quality of the publicly listed firm, and if there are any new relevant arrangements, it will strictly follow prescribed decision-making and disclosure procedures.

4 Has the company set a target for resource self-sufficiency rate? The company regards improving resource self-sufficiency rate as an important long-term strategic task, relying primarily on three paths: commissioning of projects under construction, tapping potential of existing mines, and external resource acquisitions. Regarding projects under construction, the company successfully completed the acquisition of 40% equity in Liangshan Mining in December 2025, and the Hongnipo project is expected to be completed and ready for commissioning in 2026. Regarding tapping potential of existing mines, the company leverages its major mines to continuously intensify deep and peripheral exploration efforts, steadily advancing resource succession and reserve additions. Regarding external resource acquisitions, while managing existing mines and smelters well, the company actively monitors quality mineral resource projects and prudently conducts field trips and evaluations based on strategic positioning and market demand.

5 What proportion can the company's copper smelting TC long-term contracts approximately reach? The company follows the principles of marketization and maximization of comprehensive benefits in externally purchasing raw materials. As one of the larger copper concentrate purchasers in China, the company has long maintained good, stable, long-term cooperative relationships with major suppliers, and actively negotiates with copper concentrate suppliers to stabilize long-term contract supply and ensure orderly production.

6 What were the company's sulphuric acid selling price and production in Q1 2026?According to the company's 2026 production plan, planned annual sulphuric acid production is 5.76 million mt. In Q1 2026, sulphuric acid production progressed in an orderly manner as planned. Price side, as a by-product of copper smelting, sulphuric acid selling prices are influenced by multiple factors including regional market supply and demand, transportation conditions, and industry prosperity. Since the beginning of this year, driven by robust downstream demand and tight supply in some producing areas, sulphuric acid selling prices have stayed high. The company seized market opportunities, reasonably arranged production and sales, and made positive contributions to operating performance. Meanwhile, the company will continue to monitor price changes and dynamically optimize production and sales pace.

7 Does the company have further cost reduction plans? The company's mining and smelting enterprises continuously pursue lean cost reduction to build low-cost competitive advantages. For example, the company is comprehensively advancing the "Three-Year Cost Reduction 3.0" initiative, continuously promoting cost reduction and efficiency improvement, and lowering unit production costs through technological upgrades, process optimization, and improved management efficiency.

8 What major capital expenditures are expected in the future? The company's future major capital expenditures will primarily focus on the following strategic directions: first, resource acquisition—continuously strengthening exploration and acquisition of quality copper mineral resources in and outside China to enhance resource security capabilities; second, intelligent manufacturing—advancing automation, digitalization, and intelligent upgrades of mines and smelting plants to improve production efficiency and safety levels; third, green and low-carbon development—increasing investment in environmental protection, energy conservation, and other areas to promote sustainable development.

Performance side: Yunnan Copper's Q1 2026 report disclosed on April 24 showed that the company achieved total operating revenue of 52.959 billion yuan, up 49.62% YoY; net profit attributable to the parent was 675 million yuan, up 7.93% YoY.

Regarding the reasons for the increase in operating revenue, Yunnan Copper stated that it was mainly due to higher product prices compared to the same period last year and increased sales volumes compared to the same period last year.

Yunnan Copper's 2025 annual report showed that in 2025, the company firmly established market entity awareness, strengthened its lean operations system, and solidly carried out production organization, cost control, indicator optimization, marketing value creation, and other work, with main product production reaching record highs and key technical and economic indicators continuously optimized.Full-year production included copper cathode of 1.6411 million mt, gold of 26.04 mt, silver of 735.38 mt, and sulphuric acid of 6.189 million mt, with copper cathode, gold, and silver production all reaching record highs.Full-year operating revenue reached 79.542 billion yuan and net profit attributable to the parent was 1.301 billion yuan, with operating efficiency steadily improving. Cost and technical indicators were continuously optimized, with mine concentrate copper content and smelting copper cathode unit full cost outperforming annual cost reduction targets. Key technical indicators for smelting and mining remained stable with improvement. In 2025, the copper smelting total recovery rate exceeded the target by 0.07 percentage points, and slag flotation tailings copper content was optimized by 0.01 percentage points versus the target, both reaching industry-leading levels.

Yunnan Copper announced that in 2025, the company's concentrate copper content production, on a consolidated statement basis, was 69,400 mt, up 26.64% YoY from 2024, mainly because the company issued shares to acquire 40% equity in Liangshan Mining held by Yunnan Copper Group during 2025, and Liangshan Mining was included in the consolidated statements as of December 31, 2025, with its full-year production included in the statistics.

Regarding the company's main businesses, Yunnan Copper introduced in its 2025 annual report: The company's main businesses cover copper exploration, mining and beneficiation, smelting, extraction of precious metals and rare scattered metals, sulphur chemicals, and trading. It is an important copper, gold, silver, and sulphur chemical production site in China. The company has established a relatively complete industry chain in copper and related nonferrous metals and is a copper enterprise with deep industry heritage. Main products include copper cathode, gold, silver, industrial sulphuric acid, and rare and scattered metal products such as molybdenum, platinum, palladium, selenium, and tellurium. The company's main products are all produced according to international standardization organization standards, operating effectively under the international ISO9001 quality management system to ensure strict quality control. The company's main product, copper cathode, is widely used in electrical, light industry, machinery manufacturing, construction, national defense, and other fields; gold and silver are used in finance, jewelry, electronic materials, etc.; industrial sulphuric acid is used as raw material for chemical products and in other sectors of the national economy. The company's "Tiefeng" brand copper cathode is registered on the Shanghai Futures Exchange and the London Metal Exchange; "Tiefeng" brand gold is registered on the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE) and the Shanghai Futures Exchange; "Tiefeng" brand silver is registered on the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), the Shanghai Futures Exchange, and the London Bullion Market Association.

Regarding the company's future development outlook, Yunnan Copper introduced in its 2025 annual report: Yunnan Copper adheres to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, fully implements the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and its successive plenary sessions, and upholds and strengthens the Party's overall leadership. The company actively serves major national strategies, adheres to promoting high-quality development as the theme, fully, accurately, and comprehensively implements the new development philosophy, continuously enhances core functions and improves core competitiveness, and better plays its role in scientific and technological innovation, industrial control, and security support in building a modern industrial system and constructing a new development pattern. The company emphasizes "two guarantees" (important mineral resource guarantee and important metal material guarantee), "two innovations" (scientific and technological innovation and management innovation), "two constructions" (strengthening Party building, especially cadre team building), and "three unwavering commitments" (unwavering in accelerating structural adjustment, unwavering in deepening enterprise reform, and unwavering in international operations and increasing "going global" efforts). The company focuses on "digital-intelligent transformation, expanding resources, refining mines, optimizing smelting, solidifying recycled (copper), and detailing rare scattered (metals)," accelerating the construction of a world-class excellent copper company, and continuously opening new prospects for Yunnan Copper's high-quality development.

Guosen Securities' research report commenting on Yunnan Copper on April 11 showed: Quality asset consolidation. Production side, the company's copper ore production was close to 70,000 mt, with major mines maintaining stable production. Copper smelting side, after Southwest Copper reached full production, the company's 2025 copper cathode production was 1.64 million mt, up 440,000 mt or 36% YoY. During the reporting period, the company purchased 40% equity in Liangshan Mining through share issuance to its major shareholder, achieving consolidation. Liangshan Mining is a quality asset, with its mines featuring open-pit mining, abundant reserves, higher grade than the publicly listed firm's existing copper mines, and lower costs than the publicly listed firm's existing copper mines. In H2 2025, profitability of major subsidiaries generally declined. Although copper, gold, and silver prices rose significantly in H2 2025, the company's mining operations saw profit decline QoQ. Smelting operations also declined significantly in H2 2025, which was related to the sharp drop in copper concentrate TCs. As sulphuric acid prices are expected to stay high, the company's smelting business profitability is expected to improve. Gross profit by product side, the company produces over 6 million mt of sulphuric acid annually. Benefiting from sulphuric acid price increases, sulphuric acid business gross profit in 2025 was 2.03 billion yuan, up 1.5 billion yuan YoY, representing a performance highlight. Since early 2026, sulphuric acid prices have continued to rise, and this is expected to further boost earnings. Leveraging the copper industry's high-prosperity cycle in recent years, the company's asset quality has improved, and during the reporting period it achieved consolidation of Liangshan Mining, a quality asset. As the sole copper publicly listed platform under Chalco Group, injection of other quality assets from the major shareholder is anticipated. Although the copper smelting business is under pressure in the short term, the government has issued policies to strictly control new copper smelting capacity, and the company benefits from global copper smelting capacity rationalization, with a favorable long-term industry landscape. Maintain "Outperform" rating.

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