BHP Billiton: double the demand for copper for decarbonization

Lagernard (Ragnar Udd), president of BHP Minerals in the Americas, expressed optimism about the future growth in copper demand, attributing it to three aspects: the richness of opportunities, population growth and the need for decarbonization.

It said the policy of adopting (EV), fast electric vehicles, which use four times as much copper as gasoline cars, has been clearly favoured in the past 12 months and will need more infrastructure to connect charging stations to Electroweb.

BHP Billiton expects that world emissions reduction targets in line with Paris will more than double copper demand and quadruple nickel demand over the next 30 years.

Mr Ude points out that BHP has invested about $11 billion ($14.39 billion) in Chile alone. The Skondida (Escondida) mine is 57.5 per cent owned by BHP (BHP) and produced 1.19 million tonnes of copper in 2020. At the same time, the wholly owned North Pampa (Pampa Norte) mine produced 243000 tons in the same year.

On sustainability, Ude says Chilean factories have put a lot of effort into the transition from groundwater resources. The pumping of water from aquifers for operational use was successfully stopped in December 2019 and transitioned to desalinated water. A huge milestone for BHP Billiton, involving $4 billion in financial commitments. As a result, it now uses 100% of fresh water to operate the world's largest copper asset.

BHP Billiton's copper mine in Chile aims to reduce carbon emissions by more than 3 million tons a year and is expected to achieve absolute renewable energy supply by the mid-2020s.